So I recently bought my first anvil and wanted to know how all of you guys made your hardy tools. I'm ALSO looking for a direction to go considering my hardy is 1.5 inches: Buy 1.5 inch square stock and welding it to my cutoffs, etc? OR forge it  from scratch or axle and larger stock? 

Any direction is greatly needed.

Forge it of course!!!! - you want to be a blacksmith right?

Forge it! Forging hardy tools is really fun if you're anything like me. Heavy forging is really fun. Draw down a shank and upset the rest into your hardy hole. Since its a 1.5" hole I'm sure it should be fine to do heavy forging over the hardy hole. 

If your feeling un adventurous, yes arc welding a shank onto your tool will work just fine. 

If I need a bottom swage, I use thick plate and pound the depression in.... then I weld it to some squished tube that fits my hardy hole perfectly.

Bending forks, cone mandrel, anvil vise..... everything gets a squished tube if I have it because it's cheap, easy and works.

Even if I need a swage, it's just as easy to hammer the depression into a flat plate and then weld on a stem.  By welding the stem on, you can mount it anywhere on the swage that you like.  Often, I weld them to the side so the swage actually sits over the waist of the anvil rather than out on the heel.

 

 

Next in line to get a squished tube welded onto it..... my McCrady swage block.

I've done it both ways, My hot cut was forged from solid stock. Some of my other tools like my bark die, swages etc had shanks welded on. Some were pieces of solid square stock, some angle iron, some tube. Usually what ever I had scrap on hand that would fit the hardy hole.

Depending upon your anvil there might be a certain risk to pop off the heel if you are forcing too heavy stock through a thin heel. A tube is safer.

Yes!       I also take top tools and forge the handle eyes down to fit the 1.5" hardy holes.  Usually pretty cheap buying old beat up toptools and my screwpress is a dandy for making parallel squishes.

You might check eBay. I have have found hardy and top tools there that were still in very serviceable condition for cheap. It would sure beat forging stock larger than 1.5 inch by hand. You might also look into making a 1.5 inch to 1 inch adapter for your anvil. Then you can use smaller stock that would be easier to forge by hand.

It's also worth pointing out that it takes less stock to wedge corner to corner in the hardie hole than it does to make a square shaft.  I've seen some spring fuller designs that use a long loop that's doubled over and tension fit across the corners of the hardie hole.  That takes a long length of stock, but you can do it with smaller diameter material.

 

One can also make other tools that wedge diagonally. I have seen cut off hardies made from truck springs (makes servisable top tools as well)

On 4/13/2016 at 11:17 AM, rockstar.esq said:

It's also worth pointing out that it takes less stock to wedge corner to corner in the hardie hole than it does to make a square shaft....

 

On 4/13/2016 at 0:06 PM, Charles R. Stevens said:

One can also make other tools that wedge diagonally....

 

I don't know how I haven't seen this method posted before, but I like it and will use it in the future.

Upsetting a full sized hot shank into my little anvil made me nervous about the heat affecting the anvil. I went real slow and gave it long breaks to cool. A diagonal bar section will be much less stressful.

One of the other members posted that he helped his instructor forge a cut off hardy that fit diagonally as part of a set of tools for a fly in demo.