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I Forge Iron

My Swage Anvil


atexascowboy

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The world is not flat!
It took a LOT of thought before I could turn my beautiful Kohlswa into a farrier's swage anvil. Should I risk turning it into a useless pile of scrap or use it as is. As a blacksmith/farrier ,I had the guts to make that first cut, later when that cut didn't break, another. Kohlswa brags on the quality of their products and this anvil is proof. HAD it been a cheap/poor quality anvil, as is most common nowadays, it too would have a thread about the broken heel on our website.
As it is, this anvil has given me many years of productive service as a portable farrier's swage/anvil!
As my dear ol' momma used to say " If they ain't talking about you, you ain't doin' nothing".
Jeff Turner "atexascowboy

I have owned and still do, several great quality anvils . HB 500 lb. , Kohlswa 275 lb.- B36, PW 430 lb. , but NONE has given me the versatility or production as this little anvil. After 15 years of beating hot and cold steel from mini shoes to #8 draft it is still in beautiful condition! Someday ALL farrier anvils will be like this.
This topic is in reference to my controversial listing on fleabay.

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Many thanks PPTP.

George- It's falls under the evolution of a tool. Where would we be if everyone still believed that the world is flat and man can't fly. I guess still beating on a rock for an anvil over in our ancestral home, BUT, we would be content not knowing what other possibilities are out there. Guess that's where the old saying came from. "IGNORANCE IS BLISS! ".

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Many thanks PPTP.

George- It's falls under the evolution of a tool. Where would we be if everyone still believed that the world is flat and man can't fly. I guess still beating on a rock for an anvil over in our ancestral home, BUT, we would be content not knowing what other possibilities are out there. Guess that's where the old saying came from. "IGNORANCE IS BLISS! ".

I'd call it mutilation of a tool. Especially when you could have easily ordered as many swage blocks as you wanted from Thoro'bred.

Additionally, the ones they don't make that you might have needed you could have fabricated yourself and had plenty of bottom swages to fit your hardy hole.

But hey, whatever. I'll remain blissfully ignorant while last time I looked that abortion of an anvil brought a big whopping $3 in 6 bids

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It is a tool, and it is made to be used.

Very true. Not mutilated and abused.

And if it is used to make things that make money, then it should be as efficient as possible.

Which it most certainly was the day it was sold to this fellow.

And it should be upgraded and replaced as necessary.

Which for an anvil like that should be in about 1000 years.
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George-

I'm sorry but I really have to disagree with you! If I need to modify a tool to serve a particular purpose and its my tool, well I'm gonna modify it. Anvils aren't sacred and I have a feeling that any old time blacksmith would have laughed you out of the county over your diatribe. Just because they now cost WAY too much doesn't mean they still can't be modified. I agree completely with atexascowboy,  "As it is, this anvil has given me many years of productive service as a portable farrier's swage/anvil!" It served it purpose and that's all that's need to be said. You are entitled to your opinion, so is cowboy! Let it go.

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A dozen swages rattling around the truck and getting misplaced, or a few cuts in an anvil that's not at all rare?

 

Chopping into a mint anvil that is no longer being produced... yea, I'd get miffed at that.  A farrier's anvil, though, is still being produced and don't fetch that much money on the used market.  The modifications made seem to fit a farrier's needs (of which I know nothing) so I'm sure another farrier will see the value. 

 

Go for it, Tex.  

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Mods.

 

That's what they are. If we didn't spend our time modding (experiments) where would we be? I see absolutely no problem with Tex's modifications to make his work efficient and effective. As a horse owner, all I care about is that the shoe fits and fits properly. As a farrier all he would be concerned with is making the best shoe for his clients possible. If that meant modding his anvil, then I am all for it.

 

i bet he has made his money back in efficiency and effectiveness. and in the end, it really is just a tool.

 

best regards,

Albert

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Thank you Fat Fud, Vaughn and Albert. Apparently our resident armchair farrier can't get into the spirit of improvising /altering tools to suit ones needs. This great country WAS built and IS still being built by people, such as on this forum, who were not afraid to set sail into uncharted waters.
My apologies go out to Glenn as I had no intention of turning your excellent forum into a catfight.
You have my blessing to close or delete this thread.

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I have gotten a good smile from this exchange! Someone once said, "If we always do what we've always done, we'll always have what we've always had?" Living in China has taught me some valuable lessons. Americans, in the past, have been movers and shakers and constantly searching for innovation. It is very true that Chinese excel in "borrowing" ideas and concepts. The old grandmother in a village here still goes to the well every day and carries water home in two buckets hanging from a bamboo pole across her shoulders as her grandmother and great grandmother had done before her.  Long ago in the USA some pioneer on the frontier would have figured out a way to make some pipe and brought the water to the house! (No doubt he was spurred into action by his wife who was fed up with carrying water on her shoulders.)  

 

Your modifications made your work easier and faster and put more money in your pocket. I see your modified anvil is a testament to your hard work. At this point, 32 people have voted with their money! Good luck with your auction.

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IMNSHO, it is a tool, not a holy relic. ABANA is raffling off Alex Bealer's anvil this spring. Painting it pink and putting it in a flowerbed would bring a tear to my eye, but the winner can do anything that they want to it or with it.

 

What no one seems to bring up is that this sort of tool mod is only possible with a modern homogeneous cast steel anvil. The owner recognized the possibilities and acted on it to make his life easier. Doing this much alteration to a wrought iron or cast iron anvil would have resulted in a catastrophic failure at some point. The relatively thin tool steel face could not have handled the stress.

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Making an anvil into a tool that allows the fast repetition of a specific task in the easiest possible way is pretty much what its all about!

 

An anvil is a tool the more fit for purpose the better. They are not sacred and even out gentlest tappings will eventually wear them out its all part of the process.

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IMNSHO, it is a tool, not a holy relic. ABANA is raffling off Alex Bealer's anvil this spring. Painting it pink and putting it in a flowerbed would bring a tear to my eye, but the winner can do anything that they want to it or with it.

 

What no one seems to bring up is that this sort of tool mod is only possible with a modern homogeneous cast steel anvil. The owner recognized the possibilities and acted on it to make his life easier. Doing this much alteration to a wrought iron or cast iron anvil would have resulted in a catastrophic failure at some point. The relatively thin tool steel face could not have handled the stress.

What type of anvil did he own?

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It worked, you made money off that anvil. Now you could, if you desired to, buy an "antique" anvil and keep it stored for the next generation's next generation..... or you could buy a new anvil, modify it for your needs, and make another sum of money. Think of what the romans would think if they knew we had taken their precious cube anvil and added a horn a heel! A travesty, for sure! And I'm sure SOMEONE had a fit when Fisher started pouring the cast anvils, while everyone and their dad had a forged anvil. Its the evolution of a tool. Perhaps one day your modified swedge anvil will be the norm for some company's farrier anvil line. I for one support you.

 

One day all the "old" anvils will rust away, and I think we put too much precendence on anvils becuase there seems to be little chance of anvils being mass produced for what hobbiests would call "affordable". I want to make my blacksmithing profitable, and I know one day I might just have to buy a new anvil. If so, I will do it. It is like photography: You can take pictures as a hobby with a $50 Wal-Mart point-and-shoot, or you can take higher quality photos like a professional with a $1000 DSLR telescoping lens with all the stabalization and do-dads and nick nacks accompanying it. It all depends on what you're willing to put in. If you need to use that expensive camera to capture a special shot where there is a good chance the lens would be ruined, a serious photographer might deem the sacrifice acceptable. This applies to anvils as well. Tex sacrificed the heel's unbroken smoothness to obtain what he needed. Only, in his case, the whole anvil was not busted, but rather had several new uses. Take plowmakers and chainmakers anvils. They are not "standard" london pattern, but they were invented by someone who probably took an anvil and modified it well before Hay Budden or Peter Wright started to mass produce the special styles.

 

Sorry for the rant, it just seems logical to modify tools to make the best use of them.

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Jeff can correct me if I'm wrong, but some anvil modifications may have derived from the race track horseshoer's (plater) stall jack. The stall jack was a small anvil made of say, 3/4" thick plate, the plate maybe 6-8" long and 3.5 to 5" wide, maybe trapezoidal, rectangular or guitar shaped. The jack could be carried to the horse, and it had a single leg with a stop that could be hammered into the ground next to the horse's leg being worked on. Opposing notches were gound, sanded, filed into the edges of the face, so that the light, aluminum shoe could be opened easilly by supporting it over the notches.  Later on, these stall jacks began to be used by everyday shoers with their manufactured shoes. A proper sized hole through the jack could be used as a support when "kicking in" a branch or heel. Stall jacks are now being sold on horseshoeing tool sites. They used to be home made, and some still are home made.

 

The above is FYI, not a critique of the anvil mods.

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You're right on the money Frank.
For years I did my final fitting with a stall jack. One day a seasoned veteran such as yourself told me that I spent toomuch time bent over, that going to the anvil was a good thing. This is a trade off, and a good one, combining the speed features of the lightweight stall jack with the bulk/mass of the less portable anvil.
I want to extend a hearty TEXAS THANKS to ALL who backed me on this issue. Those being true blacksmiths not afraid to think outside the box or as Barry puts it " I didn't know there was a box.".
If any of y'all ever needs a favor from these parts, just holler.
ATC

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