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Thomas Powers Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique (TPAAAT)


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I have done this before on my 135lb mousehole. cleanupwill have to wait untill I get a shop built and bring it home. I was planing on building a shop this summer but now it has moved up on the priority list! When this one comes home it will not be moving from place to place like my smaller anvils.The feet and bottom look a lot like my mousehole.

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And I hope you get it---but what I said is true.  So much so that if I buy one; but don't have the cash on hand I will put down a deposit and fill out a bill of sale for it and have the owner sign it stating that I have bought it and will pay the rest of the money upon picking it up.  And I have had folks try to get out of that or change the particulars of the sale too.

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Wait was the Thomas power anvil finding technique an actual blueprint? For me it seems once you find an anvil, you start popping up along them tons of times. It just so happens that after I bought my anvil, one was sitting in my local hardware store. I still got to make an offer on that, but my cash supply just got drained from that freon forge. Anyways, then I find mini anvils too. Paper weight sized. Then just the other day, I found a railroad spike anvil. The thing is that I'm not even looking for these. They just pop up out of no where. I swear, that railroad spike anvil was not there when I was first in the room. I looked around a bit and right when I was about to leave I jerked my head and the anvil appeared in the corner of my eye. Now of course I am looking for a post vise and can't find one. I am sure once I do, they will pop up out of no where too! Thomas Powers you are crazy too. Crazy in a good way. You know your anvils, that's for sure. You can get a pretty good idea of the brand anvil just by looking at the shape of the anvil. I hope one day I will be able to do that!

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  • 7 months later...

I started 'beating the bushes' to try and find anvils about 2 months ago. Since that time I've collected 3 very nice anvils for a total of 4 in my possession now. My original anvil was an 81lb Peter Wright, then I found a 125lb Kohlswa, then a 126lb Sisco Superior and just yesterday a 130lb Peter Wright. I simply started asking around. I bought some scrap metal for a hyrdraulic press and the guy had an anvil tucked away. I bought some forge parts from another guy and asked him and he knew a guy who had one, etc. Just ASK everyone you know. EVERYONE.

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Not only anvils. Gardening and rare plants are one of my hobbies. I can roam through a whole province and see nothing of interest. Then I stumble over (not literally) a terrestical orchid and then suddenly hundreds pop up in the immediate vicinity.

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  • 4 months later...

TPAAAT is like planting seeds. You scatter sends everywhere hoping for a good crop. Some seeds fall on rocks, some seeds the birds eat, and some seeds fall on fertile soil. Do not question how many seeds did not germinate, or went to the birds, you planted extra knowing that would be the case. You wait with both patience and excitement to see the first sprout push up. Then the second, then the third, and all of a sudden there are sprouts everywhere. Do not question why you planted so many seeds, just nurture and encourage each individual sprout to grow, and produce. In time you will have enough anvils to share. Think of the extra anvils as seeds to grow the next generation of blacksmiths, and in time they too will sprout, grow, mature. 

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The scattering of seeds can have unexpected results too; I've spent many an interesting hour talking with folks who did smithing 50 years ago or had fathers or uncles or grandfathers,..., who were smiths.  (One of my wife's great uncles used to do "maintenance smithing" at a sugar refinery in Kansas City!  Another fellow I met was an orthopedic blacksmith at a local Hospital during WWII.   Just using the internet is like tossing notes in a bottle from a desert island...)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/21/2017 at 11:10 AM, Glenn said:

TPAAAT is like planting seeds. You scatter sends everywhere hoping for a good crop. Some seeds fall on rocks, some seeds the birds eat, and some seeds fall on fertile soil. 

You nailed it. I "planted some seeds" at my parents church (the one i grew up going to) and while my dad was working with one of the congregation members replacing some carpet in the lower level he mentioned blacksmithing and was talking about how i got into it etc. Anyways the guy was a farrier for 30 years part time along with his construction job and hasnt touched his smithing stuff in 15 years.. I'm not receiving 2 anvils, bunch of tongs, (maybe) a new forge, (maybe) some hammers, all for free... He just wants the tools he has to be loved and used as he used them for all those years.. I'll post pictures of this wonderful find once i schedule a trip to go pick it all up. I'm overly excited after my father called me and gave me that news last night.

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At church last night I was talking with a fellow in his 20's working on his EMS certs and getting into blade smithing and a lady walks up and gives me a nice old farrier's rasp that she had gotten in her divorce several decades ago.  She told me she probably has some more and would be happy to give them to me.  Meanwhile the young fellow's eyes are bulging as he's been asking me about them.  I also told him he could overpay for tools on ebay or go to the local fleamarket on the way home from Church on Sunday and buy better ones for half the price...generally just hammers; but every now and then tongs show up as well...

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  • 3 months later...

All I can say is the TPAAAT works!  I started putting out the word that I was looking for an anvil.  I also contacted a local member of the FABA about a meet that is coming up in a few weeks.  He told me that he had a couple of guys coming over that Friday to do some forging and said I was welcome to come and said that he had an old anvil in his garage that he didn't use anymore.  That was Tuesday night, and I couldn't wait for Friday to come.  I made two new friends, forged a knife from a railroad spike, and got to look at his old anvil he didn't use anymore.  He raised the garage door and there sat a Peter Wright marked 1-2-17 (185#s if my calcs are correct).  He said it had been repaired over 50 years ago before he got it, and that he had never had a problem with it, it was just too big for him now.  He's in his late 70's and uses a 140# Peter Wright.  I was so excited I didn't even think to check the rebound or anything on it.  I asked how much he wanted for it.  He threw out and number, then talked himself down $50 without me saying I word.  I asked if I could get the younger man there to help me load it and I would run to the closest ATM and bring back the cash, and he said sure.  I got it home and did a rebound test on it and everything rings true and the rebound is great, probably close to 90%, even the small repaired section is probably 80% rebound.

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Sorry, yesterday was a busy day.  I was driving all over the southeast US looking for a PW anvil that weighed 185#.  Finally found one up in Atlanta Ga for a mere $2000.00!  

But hey the pics are up in the Show me your anvil thread, so it was worth it.

Sorry guys, just a little humor.  It was a busy day, we took the cedar logs to 2 different mills and were told it would be $800-$1000 to have them milled into lumber, so we decided we had better wait before spending that much of our small church's money to mill lumber we may not sell.  One guy offered $150 for both loads of logs, then quickly offered to mil them on halves, so that told us they were worth at least $1000, rather than the $150 he offered.  Then I had a meeting with the Principal of one of the local High Schools to see if I could talk with the students about Apologetics.  

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  • 2 months later...

A cautionary tale concerning TPAAAT (Thomas Powers Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique):

It also stands for TPA(ANYTHING)AT:

Me before coffee.

20171021_120739.jpg

As you can see, it applies to the acquisition of ANY material one may  set ones sights upon - fleas, excessive body hair, defunct water heaters.......

Be careful out there!

Robert Taylor

Edited by Anachronist58
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