Kudos to My Friend

[stuarthesmith]

Many years ago, while serving my apprenticeship, my mother, who was a bookkeepper, told a friend of hers in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, that I was serving an apprenticeship, at this craft. Her response was "I have an old anvil which belonged to my father; would you be interested in it"? Of course my mother said yes. When the anvil arrived, it was a beautiful, perfect looking 220 pound hay budden, except for the fact that the heel of the anvil was missing. Evidently, someone had tried to force an hardy tool shank too big for the hole, and the heel broke off. This anvil languished on my shop floor for 33 years, until I brought it to my good friend, Jim Kieffer, a lancaster county blacksmith of extraordinary skills. He offered to fix it.
What he did was to upset a large piece of mild steel into the shape of the broken and missing heel, then forge weld a high carbon steel plate to the top of the replacement heel. After that, he forge welded, using his tandem forges, the heel to the body of the anvil. The job he did is magnificent! The anvil rings like a bell, and looks like brand new! He even got the hardy hole and pritchell right! Looking at it and listening to it, it looks like a brand new hay budden anvil.

The amazing fact about my friend Jim is that while he is one of the greatest colonial hardware blacksmiths in america, he is SELF TAUGHT, having learned by borrowing a set of Albert Sonn's "early american wrought iron" tomes and reproducing almost every forging in all three books. One of his colonial reproductions of a toasting fork was so well recieved, that it sold for over forty thousand dollars at a recent sotheby's auction. When Jim contacted them to inform them that the fork was a replica that he forged, they told him that it was StiLL worth the money!! That is how good his work is!
I figured that since he is one of the nicest guys in this business, I traded his labor in fixing my anvil for a set of original Albert Sonn First Editions of which I had an extra set. He has always been very forthcoming in teaching techniques that he personally developed in forging hardware and utensils, never charging anyone ever for his mentoring. I figured that the least I could do would be to provide this master smith with his own set of Sonn's, so that he could continue to reign/rain his sparks of ingenuity and excellence upon this humdrum world of ours.
Please be advised that at my earliest convenience, I am going to post pics of this rebuilt anvil.

[CurlyGeorge]

Yes, please do post the pix, Stuart. It would have been great if he could have taken step by step pix of the process of repairing your anvil. Wow. That would have been something to see!! Thanks for sharing. :)

[Frosty]

I know I'd sure like a look at your repaired anvil. More so though, I'd like to have him subbed to the forum. Next time you talk to him put in a word for IFI and us poor old lore sponges.

Frosty the Lucky.

[MattBower]

Great story. I got curious and found this article about Mr. Kieffer: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/20090317_This_blacksmith_forges_works_of_art.html Sounds like a fascinating character. I'd like to see more of his work.

Do you know how he went about hardening the anvil after he welded on the new piece, Stuart?

[CurlyGeorge]

Thanks for the video, Matt. He does sound like a very interesting character indeed! Stuart, maybee you should ease over there and take some pix while he does a BP. (hint-hint) LOL :D

[ironstein]

Sounds like an amazing man. Craftsmen like that are few and far between anymore. You are lucky to know him.

[njanvilman]

Interesting story. I must visit both of your shops someday.

I would love to have a video of that repair. I have an old english anvil that needs the same repair. If he could do another, I would record it.....just thinking.