Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver

If you are near a big city, look up "Blanchard grinding", much cheaper for what you want. Ten years ago I was paying around 25 cents per square inch plus $25.00 setup fee.

You'd probably be surprised how man high quality product in your house probably came from China. From what I've seen, it's mostly the importers who insist on cheap junk. When I was in China I was asked by one manufacturer "Why do you Americans like to buy so much cheap junk"? I've been importing induction machines from China for five year now and have had problems with ZERO! Some are in large manufacturing operations running 40 - 100 hours per week! ZERO! I had a modern solid-state American machine that The Boeing Co. paid $45,000.00 for. I sell a comparable Chinese machine for under $3,000.00! Before Chambersburg went belly up, they were quoting $125,000.00 for a 200 lb self contained hammer! I don't think blacksmiths were lining up at their door. In my case it isn't "should I buy American or Chinese" it's "should I buy Chinese or do without"! 100 years ago, the British were crying about cheap American imports.

Hush, hush, sweet......... Depends on what you want to use the press for. The air/hydraulic save a lot of hand pumping, but are way too slow for forging.

Well, here's the way I see it. Yes, they had developed iron cast to a high degree, but I don't infer from that, that they didn't have iron and steel forging. I believe that for many items that were forged in the west they were able to substitute high quality cast iron. They made weapons for thousands of years, most of which were steel and it seems to have been very high quality steel too. Have you seen the swords they dug up with the terra-cotta army? Having a well developed foundry industry and a tradition of blacksmithing are not especially mutually exclusive. They may have even had steel and/or wrought anvils, but I imagine many dirt-poor blacksmiths made do with an "adequate" cast iron one. Now sword makers and armorers might have been able to afford steel anvils. What I really want to know is why "smiths in Northeastern China" are casting anvils? Get them blacksmiths out of the foundry!

Or............or maybe it's 3 - 1 - 0 or it's 3 - 10 and zero pounds is a given. Or, it'a american numbering and it's 310 lbs. My head hurts!

Looking at the "Too Simple Fork" above, I realize that it can be done even simpler. It can be made from a bar of 1/2 X 1 and just bent around as show it the illustration, weld or not. Could even be made from two short pieces, if they fit tight they would not even need to be welded. That opens up the possibility of making up a few different sizes and

Gerald: You're too modest. I don't measure things as much the way they came out as how close they are to what I intended. I think you came out pretty close to what you were striving for, right? Understanding and control, refinement comes with repetition (experience). It's always amazing, when you're doing the tenth one to look back and try to figure out why did that first one take so long and go so hard? At first we try to bend the iron to our will, soon we learn to cajole it along and work with it as we understand what it wants to do.

Hope this one is not too dumb to post. very simple, but surprisingly useful. I just split (with a hand hack-saw) a 1" square bar down about 2-1/2 inches, bent the sides open, stick a piece of flat bar in between and close them on it. I like it for tweakin' and twisting. In fact if you make up a bunch of them (different sizes) they work real nice for twisting bars. You should file the edges a little rounded and you can use it for bending. Simple as dirt!

Wow, lotta cool ideas coming in, glad I stirred up the pot. Keep 'em coming guys! Arftist: Great ideas, thanks. Not everyone has an ironworker, but if they have a welder they could make them with four pieces of flat bar, I guess. Come to that, an 1-3/8 plate washer might work too, just a little gap to fill. Junksmith: Cheap is good!

Long as the customer is happy and you're happy...........

Really, Frosty? Ur like what.........in ALASKA? Can you even get any farther from Maine? Gonna buy the anvil a first-class ticket too?

Goatman: Yeah, good idea! The re-bar is a little more work with the grinding and all, but should work fine. Use what ya got! It"ll heat treat up too if you want.

Gerald Boggs: Nice! But.....but you're doing it all the "traditional" way. Go figure. Good job, excellent! I really like the bending fork.

JNewman: Good looking set up, man. The rolling bottom die may help, but that sharp corner top die does have a tendency to "cleave" into the part. Of course the rolling die can also be made with that half-round groove which will help. I can think of two other ways I might approach this part. I think you mentioned that you upset the corner a little before bending. Trouble is, it's hard to get it to bend in the upset, it wants to bend either side of the upset. One solution is to flatten the upset before you bend it, then bend it in the rolling die fixture. One thing you'll notice with the rolling die is that the work is supported directly under the top die, no forming in "air". This will leave it thin but wider at the bend. Forge the sides back down and press in your current fixture. Of course this will yield a part that is not round cross-section in the corner. The second approach requires the same upset, but instead of bending it we forge the corner, as shown in the illustration. If you look, you'll see that the corner bend is done. This avoids a lot of the stretch in the corner. Now you just put it in your current bending die and bend both of the legs up.

Thanks guys, the feedback is helpful. Are the explanations clear enough? You think there is enough information to do follow it? Wasn't trying to hijack the thread - stuff happens.

AndrewOC: 25.4?? Sounds like "soft" metric conversion to me.

Feedback? Yous guys want more like this? Hard for me to judge, sorry. I can barely remember when I was starting out, seems like I would have been interested in these kinds of posts. Any help or suggetions or "take a hike"? Serious comments welcomed.

Here's a nice little hardy spring fuller. Still got some of that 1/2" spring? Good, you'll need 36 inches for this project, trust me on that. First put a center punch mark at 21" from one end. Bend just like you did with the bending fork. You did make the bending fork didn't you? One end should come out about 4-1/2 - 5 inches longer than the other. Hammer tight and you can weld up 4" of the bent end. Now fold up about 2" of the bent end (yeah, just like the bending fork). Hammer tight and weld if you like. Take a heat and bend the short leg down as shown. Slip a small (3/8) round bar in the corner and hammer down to get that funny little bend. Adjust as needed so it lays flat or even a little tight on the end. The far end must lay on the anvil. Now we turn to the long leg. (Did you bend the right one, Frosty)? measure down about 8" and punch mark. Bend outward (No, Frosty, I said outward) about 30 - 35 degrees. Next, heat and bend the opposite way from the other one (Frosty?) as shown in the illustration. Not a big deal here, just try to get a pretty tight bend. This next part requires getting your heat between the two bends as best you can. Put in in the hardy hole and start the bend free-hand. It helps to have the whole thing going across the anvil for this. When you start getting past upendicular (vertical) hold a 2" slug inside to help form the curve. Now you should be able to adjust as needed to make it look like the picture. Should come out with about 3/4 inch between the bars. Heat treat the last two to three inches. if you make it out of mild steel you can try super-quench or a brine made with one pound of salt per gallon of water. Use hot water to dissolve the salt and let it cool. Don't skimp on the salt Frosty! Some people like to flatten out the spring loop before bending, probably does make it easier to bend around. The long leg can be about 1" shorter and then flatten and draw it out to proper length. Can I take a break now?

Here's a nice quick project for you guys. A quick and dirty bending fork. Start with about 12 - 14 inches of 1/2 inch round bar (whatever you use should be 1/2 of your hardy hole dimension). Great use for that spring you spent so much time straightening out. Put a little joggle in both ends like the picture, and then bend it in the middle. If one end comes out a little longer, hammer it down even, while you still got a lazy bend in it. Now hammer the bend tight on itself like the first illustration. At this point, with the heat just in that bend, lay it on the anvil and align the two joggles. If you want, you can clamp it tight and put some tack welds right where the joggles come together and a few places on down. Now you make the next bend in the other direction (about 2+ inches) and hammer everything tight. You can weld some of the joints if you want or leave it naked. Test it in your hardy hole and hammer down if needed. Now go show it to the wife/husband/mother/father, they

Been done for thousands of years "by hammer and hand, and eye). Only needs to be close, not perfect. Once you file and "set" the teeth you'll have room for a lot of variation. Rub it on a flat piece of granite to knock off the high spots. Just do it! If you don't try to get too aggressive with the hammer, you'll be surprised how even it comes out.

Don't think the number mean much of anything except to the manufacturer. Certainly not tonnage, in my experience.

Using the above method, we can now make a pretty god hot cut hardy from a leaf spring. Just forge or cut the spring to the right width for your hardy hole, forge or grind the blade, bend it as shown, and you're done (well, maybe heat treat the end, or not). Notice that the shank is over-bent so that it can be tightened up just like a hold-down. Edit: Would be nice to have better bearing directly under the cutter. Probably best to bend it before working on the cutter end, that way you can drive that corner down a bit hot. S.T.O.C.K., K.I.S.S.

Even by forging, many tools can be done by a simpler method. The drawing should make one method clear. Forge out a shank, make the swage, fuller, whatever. Heat the shank, stick it in the hardy hole and bend it over. You won't be able to get it perfectly 90 degrees, it will still be off the anvil a little on the end. Just slip a small round bar in the corner of the bend and you can drive it down a little more, take the bar out and you can hammer the corner down if needed. more S.T.O.C.K.

JohnW: Anvil support? Yeah, good point. Besides being easier to fabricate, the method I've shown avoids the problem of driving the tool down into the hardy hole and puts the tool over the beefier part of the anvil.

If you're going to fabricate a tool, there is no reason to make it look like a forged tool. It's a pain to weld a shank on the bottom, hard to tuck the weld in so it doesn't interfere with the edges of the hole, hard to get it straight, hard to get a good weld in there. I've pictured my way to avoid all that. Process dictates design in many cases. Put the shank in the hole and weld it or tack it and weld it at the bench. The hardy hole in many anvils isn't even square with the face. S.T.O.C.K.!