Jobtiel1

Yes Nodebt, that anvil is gorgeous, might have to contact Alex and see if I can come and admire it ;). The stepped feet just work very well here. ~Jobtiel

I like going to physical stores too to get my stuff, especially so you can see what you buy before you get it. However, it always seems that things are way more expensive in physical stores, and for most stuff I don't mind. Recently I was looking for some dark wood stain, 30 euros for a can of about half a liter. online you can buy a packet of powder where you have to add water yourself for 5 euros and that makes a quarter liter. Stuff like that I just tend to get online. ~Jobtiel

I love church window anvils, mine is one too: Furthermore, I like the anvils with the side slope a lot, practical use in mind too, but also the overall look: Copyrighted image removed These are both common on German and Austrian anvil patterns, and since there is not really a Dutch anvil pattern, come closest to a pattern from where I come from. ~Jobtiel

Welcome aboard! First of all, I don't know what kind of coals you might've had. I do know that English coal is sold as the highest grade smithing coals in the Netherlands, so I think it might not be difficult to get good smithing coals for you. ~Jobtiel

I think Joey referenced the stepped feet as a certain pattern, might've been Bavarian, it was in one of his recent videos. Besides that, I don't really have a clue about a maker, I think that might've been lost to time. ~Jobtiel

George, it's funny you say that, as for me it's exactly the same with Fahrenheit. Maybe because its so common to use the temperature scale for small talk and stuff like that that using a different unit for that becomes so confusing. As a chemist, for me it is useful that going from Celsius to Kelvin is not much of a problem. ~Jobtiel

I have a leather apron, it was a birthday gift from my grandmother, and it's from Etsy. It has split legs, and a chest pocket as wel as a pocket on the side. Straps go around the back and not the neck. My favourite feature is a small on the leg straps so that they can easily and quickly be undone. The split legs are really useful for grabbing stuff between your legs when forging. What I keep in it; a metal folding ruler, it has metric as well as inches, so I can easily reference those weird measurements you all use here without having to convert ;), soapstone marker, and a center punch, which I always seem to misplace. I often put punches in the pockets when I need them for projects. ~Jobtiel

What do you mean by a rare alloy? I don't understand your question. What is an alloy in your opinion? ~Jobtiel

Thanks guys! I think they turned out really well!

Over here you also often see a plate with threads on it and little plate that keeps the spring in place, all of it kept together with bolts. The backplate of this one was original, the screws were too rusted so I replaced them. You don't see wedged attachment around here very often. ~Jobtiel

George, I feel what you mean, never seen it written down like that. When my grandfather passed away last year I inherited his toolbox, and all of those tools see regular use, it just feels better to use them knowing they were used before, and still work perfectly. I even patched up some chisels and hammers so they were good to go again. Interestingly, I feel that tools I made myself have this same "soul" as well, I recently made a wooden plane and the precision that it took to get everything flat and level makes it an absolute joy to use. With old tools, and self made tools, you kind of just know that good effort is put in making the tool usable and of good quality. something that can't be said for all modern tools. Thomas, when I got my anvil (forged in 1778!) I followed advice from here to use it and after a while the dimples will get out of the face from use. Glad I followed it as the sweet spot is much cleaner now. It had a piece broken of before I got it, and the hardened face is merely 4 or 5 mm thick. The life I would have taken out of it had I not stumbled upon this place. ~Jobtiel

The honesty is why I love this site, I feel like I learn way more than just people saying you're doing fine when you're really not. Especially with questions, and the different viewpoint and following discussion can make you feel stupid for missing somethin that is obvious. It reminds me of the time I needed to replace a leather strap on my old foot pedalled forge, and someone suggested going to the thrift shop to get some old belts and sewing them together, so simple yet I didn't think of it at the moment. I didn't even know there were more blacksmithing forums on the web, I thought most of the others were for bladesmithing. I love the fact that there are many blacksmiths here with a lot of knowledge on how to do a wide variety of different projects. ~Jobtiel

I didn't know something like that could happen, you must've felt devastated in the moment. I can't imagine my anvil breaking in two while forging on it. ~Jobtiel

Had a really productive day in the shop, I forged and fitted the hinges for a wooden chest, as well as the handles. The handles I followed the style of attaching by DF in the shop, just bending round bar for the keepers. The hinges I made using the instruction in "the complete modern blacksmith", namely splitting the ends and forging them around a mandrel to fit around the other part of the hinge. I thought that would be a bit difficult, especially since I don't make hinges very often, but it turned out really well! ~Jobtiel.

Welding a tube or solid shank that fits the hardy hole (square hole) and welding a piece of steel to that as a block and polishing that up will serve you very nicely as an anvil block for your jewelry work. Looking something like this: ~Jobtiel

Very cool way to make a swage block! I suggest you weld some steel to the feet so that it slots over the sides of the anvil, that will make it unable to rotate on the anvil face, and together with the holdfast will probably make a better hold. I have done this too with a sort of hardy hole since my anvil doesn't have one.\ ~Jobtiel

The thing is, you don't need a flat anvil face, a crowned anvil face is often preferred by smiths because less metal is touching the anvil to cool it down. It seems you have no intention of doing any hot forging, the next owner might, and by milling of the surface of the anvil you take of a considerable part of the hardened face, which means that there is much less life left in the anvil. furthermore, for straightening welded stuff or copper stuff you don't need a flawless surface. for jewelry you probably want a polished face, what do you think happens to that polished face when hammering cold steel on it? thus I doubt milling the anvil is the solution here. I suggest you make an anvil block with a polished face for jewelry, and use the anvil as is for all other tasks, and after using it for a year or 2, you might find you really need that flat face (again, I doubt it), and at least you can make an informed decision about it. Reading through this thread makes me think you're still going to do it though. ~Jobtiel

Those mounts are common on German patterned vises. I see them being called swallow tail vises around here. But I don't know any smiths who call them that. on German vises here you see either this type of mounting bracket, a simple plate, or the spade finial, in that order of frequency. ~Jobtiel

Exactly, and we've also had a period where our king Willem was also king of England, so no surprise that there are a lot of word shared or roughly the same. It's always fun to see stuff like that. ~Jobtiel

In terms of naming of forging tools, I like that there is a lot of overlap with English and Dutch names, a set hammer is called a "zethamer" in Dutch, a fuller is a "vulder", and a punch a "pons". interestingly, a flatter is called a "vlakhamer" which translates to flat hammer. ~Jobtiel

It's a stop with teeth on it at the edge of the workbench where you can put wood against so that when you plane the sides it won't move around. I'm planning on making a chest with all forged hardware so I had to make some thing for the woodshop to be usable. I don't have a woodworking vise... JHCC, I found out the hard way that the holdfast moves quite a bit when tightening, instead of the flat ends holding the workpiece it move so much that it's just round bar holding the piece. A bit more curving should fix that! ~Jobtiel

Yesterday I forged a planing stop and two holdfasts for the woodwork bench, and today I installed the planing stop. Also messed around with the holdfasts for a bit and I have to bend them a bit more for them to work well. ~Jobtiel

Maybe its a top swage to form the offsets in brackets for things like a gate latch or something like that. ~Jobtiel

Nederlander is actually the dutch word for ourselves Frosty! ~Jobtiel

Goedemorgen! Nice to see a fellow dutchman here. As for the anvil, Have you done a ring and rebound test to test it's quality? I have no idea on the make really, some more experienced people will probably chime in on that one. ~Jobtiel