Hello All,
I am starting to make more of my own hardy tools & jigs "And Loving It!"
They are not great but they are getting better and seem to work pretty well. Looking for Ideas and a bit of direction I would really love to see some pics and Ideas for hardy tools and other neat tools and gadgets I can forge or forge & weld up for my blacksmithing.
I got inspiration to make a different bending fork when I saw a blue print by "Irn" & "Baby Anvil" making a fire poker.(Check it out) The poker was Great, but you almost take for granted and miss a cool side bending fork in one of the pics, Thanks Irn, I'd love to see more!!!!! Following that, I thought it would be cool and a real help to mine as well as others learning curve to see peoples innovations, ideas and creations for hardy tools, tooling etc for the hardy or what ever.
Its a new addiction, making tools for a project...it seems just as great as making the project itself and you have it for future stuff.
Any way (Sorry tend to ramble) I know IFI has some in blueprints but it would be a great to see new pics and revisit old ones.
Thanks for sharing
TIM

You are most welcome cheftcook, that's what the blueprints are all about, sharing ideas with others.

My hardy hole on my big anvil is 1 1/4" so it's a lot harder to make tools for it. I have to make them to fit the small anvil or make them small and put sleeves on them.

Steve

I have 3 anvils with 1.5" hardy holes, (one even has two of them). I took a piece of square tubing and hacksawed about 1.5" down each corner and then heated it and folded the flaps out flat to make a sleeve to convert the large hole smaller---actually have a couple that nest so I can get down to the size of the hardy holes on the smaller anvils.

From Blueprint BP0269
Just a couple of ways to tame those large hardie holes.

I have found a source for hardy material, a rail road scrap pile near by has a number of small slices of railroad track that were cut from the end of the rails.
they are from 1/6 to 8" in thickness. I cut them thru the web and work the web to a size that will fit the hardy. I have made hot and cold cuts, fullers, swages and texture tools from both the tops and bottoms of the rail.

My first anvil was a 3' section of track stood on end. I used the end of the top as my anvil and sharpened the web for a hardy. If I did it over I would cut two or three slots in the bottom of the side of the track for bending "forks".

The nice thing about using the sq tubing is that it provides a surface for the tool to rest on when you are hammering on it. The angle iron has the tooling supported on one side and not on the other---works fine for tools you will be twisting on; but not as good for impact tooling.

I have some torsion bar stock that would make excellent 3/4 or 7/8 tools, but its just a little too small for the 1" hardy in my anvil. I think I'll try to find a piece of square tubing to adapt it. Its extremely hard, tough stuff. Its pretty hard even normalized.