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I Forge Iron

Hold down clamp for extra anvil


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My anvils were made by myself from 3”X 4” bar stock and contain no hardy hole. (There wasn’t a good way to put that in at the time of construction.) Having an extra anvil led me to construct a “hold down” that can stay mounted on. I purchased two pieces of 5/8”Acme threaded rod with nuts and welded them to a ½” X 1.5 piece of flat bar for a clamp bar. This is used with two die springs 8” long with 5/8” clearance holes. I rigged up and welded a pry bar that can lift this clamp for work holding on the face of the anvil. I cut a small ditch in the middle to stabilize round stock. This seems to have very good holding power and was relatively cheap to make. Spears

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the comments gentlemen. It isn't always so easy to shop for all this stuff and I find my artwork hobby to be very "tool driven" when it comes to the forging. Here's a description with a few more pictures.

A fixture was constructed to straddle the anvil having a plate that can be slipped under the new anvil hold down clamp for a more solid mount. All my power hammer dies both upper and lower can be mounted to this fixture. One corner of the die plate is placed over a ½” pin and two or three screws added for a solid mount to the fixture.


Utilizing the mount for my power hammer tooling, I have a few more hand forging capabilities. It may not be the fastest thing as far as change-over, but it beats having nothing at all. Until I can get a swage block, I'm going to use this. The artwork is yet to come from all these homemade tooling ideas. Enjoy, Spears.

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Somebody machine that anvil? Very interesting.


I was a machine shop teacher for three years in a high school vocational center that had a CNC mill. A professional heat treat company gave my anvils a 1/8" case hardening. It has worked out fine and holding up well considering I miss the workpiece now and again.
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I was a machine shop teacher for three years in a high school vocational center that had a CNC mill. A professional heat treat company gave my anvils a 1/8" case hardening. It has worked out fine and holding up well considering I miss the workpiece now and again.


I only thought I was impressed by the anvil pics.Then I saw the die holder pics and was REALLY impressed.
That is one incredibly fine idea and I can see where it would be at least near as handy as a swage block.
Got any other cool pics hanging around?How about just standing in the middle of the shop and shooting with a wide lens video camera.We`ll tell you when to stop and zoom in. :)

Thanks for posting the pics and we don`t mind looking at more.Right guys?
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