Dunno if it's something in the water or what but I, too, have ventured into forging bottom tooling. One of the local smiths who is just starting out stopped by the shop yesterday morning with his anvil in tow. The last time we'd talked he had complained about not having a hot cut so I offered to help him get one together. After rummaging around in the scrap pile for a while we can up with some round stock that

was beefy enough to fit the hardy hole on his anvil and fell to beating on it with hammers. Here are the results:

 

While it's definitely not as pretty as the ones Mr. Brazeal makes it turned out better than anything I have for my own anvil. Another case of the cobbler's children I guess.

 

Earlier that morning while I was heating up the forge and waiting for the other smith to show up I decided to experiment with a chunk of pavement breaker bar I picked up from a flea market a couple months ago. I had been dreading trying to work the material by hand with no striker but I got impatient once the forge was lit and decided to give it a go anyway. After hammering myself nearly senseless, I managed to hammer out what may be the weirdest looking v-block I have ever seen:

 

 

I'm on the fence here. On the one hand it definitely functions as a v-block (no complaints there) the only straight lines on it are in the center channel. Definitely there is room for improvement. The way the sides flare out at the top is especially distressing. I'm thinking I probably should have knocked in the sides at the top of the block before hammering in the channel. Thoughts?
 

Oh yeah, while we're on the topic, should I bother heat treating bottom tools that are made of tool steel?

Nice job on both tools! No need to heat treat either tool unless you want to cut cold with the hot cut.

Ditto Brian! Nothing to ashamed of there!

Excellent..... Can only wish my work was that good.... Back to the forge for me....

 

Dale