Farrier Anvil question

[rockstar.esq]

I have an NC Tool "Short Sugar" 70lb anvil that I've been learning on for the last few years.  Overall I'm happy with it but I suspect it's design is geared towards farriers.  For example it features turning cams on the side as well as a "turning hole" that looks like a giant, chamfered pritchel hole. 

 

The only feature that's been something of a stumbling block for me is the horn.  The horn does not have a straight conical taper so I find it's difficult to set stock at a right angle to the point of contact on the horn. The horn shape is generally "horse shoe" in cross section with a swelling taper that is largest just about an inch before it reaches the waist of the anvil.  The tip of the horn is even with the anvil face and the table is about a half inch down.

 

I've tried mimicing the ABANA video's on youtube which demonstrate drawing a square taper using the horn.  When I drag a soapstone line along my horn it doesn't register a straight line, it's more of a curved hump.  The tapers tend to pull to one side or the other as I struggle to find some way to steer a straight line with all those curving surfaces.

 

The heel of my anvil is rounded (weird I know) and I'm able to get square and even tapers using that rounded surface as a fuller/contact point.  I can get decent scrolls going using the edge of the anvil as well.

 

I'd like to be able to turn a bend using the horn but I haven't figured out how to get a bend in just one dimension with this horn.  I'm constantly taking out little kicks to either side of the bend I want to make.

 

Any tips or tricks I can use with this anvil?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

None of my old blacksmiths anvils have a true circular conical horn (PWs, Trenton, A&H. Powell, Fisher) Also just the fact that they taper means that a piece will curve side to side using it.

If I need to fuller "straight" I can use my straight peen---looks like it has a 1" dia rod welded on the end, I can use a bottom or top fuller or both or use a heavy chunk of steel with a good curve to it.

Now my 515# Fisher the taper on the horn is quite gradual and usually within hammering variation; so I use it preferentially and just straighten as needed.

[Judson Yaggy]

If you place your stock square to the long axis of the anvil and hammer over the horn you will indeed start to form some sort of unwanted helix in your scrolls and tapers as you have discovered.  

 

Assuming that you are right handed and address the anvil with the horn to your left (this is common but not the only way of working at an anvil) you will want to skew the stock from between 2 and 15 degrees off of perpendicular to the anvil depending on anvil size and where on the horn you are working.  Think of pulling your tong hand back towards your body slightly so the tip of the work piece is slightly closer to the tip of the anvil horn.  You may find that the sweet spot of contact with the anvil horn is slightly downhill on the opposite side from where you are standing.  Finding the sweet spot and angle will help keep things true but EVERYONE tends to spend a little time at the end of a heat truing things up.

 

If you want to try something radical and plan on drawing over the horn a lot, stand with the tip of the horn just poking your right thigh, most of your body will be to the left of the anvil, and your shoulders will be square to that long axis.  As if your right eye were looking along the length of the anvil.  Hammer away.  It's unconventional but a pretty darn ergonomic way to hammer on a London pattern anvil.  

 

A note on bending with the hammer- the stock will bend at the point of least resistance between the hammer and anvil.  That means the hottest spot in whatever distance is between the contact points of the hammer and stock and the anvil and stock.  If you have a very even heat as from a gas forge, it'll bend most at the midpoint between hammer and anvil (not counting deflection from the weight of the bar itself).

[rockstar.esq]

Thomas, Judson, 

 

Thank you for the replies.  I guess the funky horn is going to take some practice to get used to.  It's good to know that a bit of straightening is necessary. The horn on the ABANA video wasn't a perfect conic section but it was less truncated than mine.