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I Forge Iron

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I'm sorry, cannot adjust size. I'm on a Kindle! My 371# early Peter Wright on a new ~400# white oak stump I recently got from a friend. Its a big stump but I'm able to get close to the anvil. Been working a lot lately too so no time at the forge. Huge bummer. In the process of making good spikes to hold this puppy down.

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Guessing your digging bar anvil gets lower and lower as you use it. May be some trouble when it gets too bedding into the ground.

If you can find a tree stump on the side of the road and pick up a sledge hammer head (useful later anyways) you would have something a bit more solid, think someone already mentioned this idea

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After digging around I found a bunch, But they are seriously expensive, I am young and haven't yet got a reliable source of income( My Parents are rarely reliable with pocket money...).

So as I said I was looking around and found anvils that weighed much less, can you guys give me any advice on starting supplies, like brands and prices etc.

Thanks again,

Jakob

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Hi Aceman, this was my starter anvil which I got for free by contacting a local railyard and asking them for a 2-3' section of track (they also gave me a bucketful of spikes).  It didn't take long of forging and selling what I'd made to buy a 190# Peter Wright.  Another option would be to visit a scrapyard (if you can find one that still sells to the public) and find a suitable chunk of steel.

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Ok, I live in Australia, and there are a bunch of railroads in the blue mountains where I live, so I will ask around and see what I can do about that. 

Thanks DCRAVEN for the advice, and do you have any good Ideas as to what I should forge first, as a kind of practice forge.

And how can I tell what a metal is, eg Iron from Steel, weak from strong... Sorry about all the questions but I am a young wannabe Blacksmith and I would like to know how to distinguish that kind of stuff.

Again Thanks!!!

Jakob

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Ok, I live in Australia, and there are a bunch of railroads in the blue mountains where I live, so I will ask around and see what I can do about that. 

Thanks DCRAVEN for the advice, and do you have any good Ideas as to what I should forge first, as a kind of practice forge.

And how can I tell what a metal is, eg Iron from Steel, weak from strong... Sorry about all the questions but I am a young wannabe Blacksmith and I would like to know how to distinguish that kind of stuff.

Again Thanks!!!

Jakob

 

I suggest you invest hours reading through this website, lots of good info here

 

Josh

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Ok, I live in Australia, and there are a bunch of railroads in the blue mountains where I live, so I will ask around and see what I can do about that. 

Thanks DCRAVEN for the advice, and do you have any good Ideas as to what I should forge first, as a kind of practice forge.

And how can I tell what a metal is, eg Iron from Steel, weak from strong... Sorry about all the questions but I am a young wannabe Blacksmith and I would like to know how to distinguish that kind of stuff.

Again Thanks!!!

Jakob

As Josh said above, I'd spend a lot of time looking thru this website to get ideas.  There's also purgatory ironworks and anvilfire.  The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander Weygers is a good resource to have and will give you a lot of ideas and projects, as well as types of metals to use.

 

You'll probably be able to get lots of railroad spikes if you are polite and ask nicely.  Search Etsy for railroad spike bottle openers and you'll get a ton of hits.  Openers were my first projects and all but the first ones that I choose to keep sold.  Etsy is another good resource for ideas.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My handmedown anvil, it came from my fathers ranch, that got it in the 50s from the town blacksmith, I'm thinking early 1900s or late 1800s.  And my crappy first attempt at a knife from leaf spring.  The base is a mud tire filled 75% with rock, a plastic feed drum placed on that, and the drum filled with a mix of sandstone, limestone, sandy loam and topped of with pea gravel and a board for a flat area.  Its odd and its mine so I love it.

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Finally I got something close to an anvil... it has around 22 kg and I was told it's an 'old' farrier anvil. The table (tempered tool steel) has 20x13 cm. No hardie-hole, just the pritchel-hole, and the horn has a flat end.

Anyone have seen one of these before?

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Attached is a picture of my first and current anvil.  It is a 70 pound Fisher with the date 1903 embossed on it along with the Fisher name.   I paid $40.00 for it and since I am new to Blacksmithing, this seems to be fine for the moment.  Eventually I would like to get a larger anvil, but let's see how I progress with my skills.

 

The log base is a 26" long x 16" wide piece of oak that the local Nursery was kind enough to cut to the length that I wanted.  Would have liked to be have seen it cut a little more square, but seeing the owner handle that chain saw, I am not too sure how much more square it could be.  I built a jig for my router to machine a base into the log for my anvil to sit in so that is was level to the floor of my shop.     Stained the log and added 8 coats of polyurethane.

 

If I had to do the base over, I would have gotten (2) garbage cans and filled one with stain and the other with polyurethane.   This time I only stained and coated the top of the base, but every time I move this set-up, pieces of bark come off.  I think if the whole thing was stained and coated, this would stop a lot of this from happening.

 

I am currently designing a wheel assembly(s) that would mount on the log and be able to raise the log off the floor to more easily move it around my shop.  

 

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