be easy on me uall frist time at the anvil ever and frist time beside the forge in 8 months let me know what uall think done two of them all I had as a chisel was a rr spike there for my house 

The side viens should be angled towards the tip of the leaf. Study a real leaf and you will see that. Otherwise a good first try. This stuff takes practice. Dont give up :-)

Did you intend for them to be so long? My main issue is that they dont look like real leaves. I reccomend that you cut off the tapered point of the spike so you have the square end to work with then you go back about 3/4 of an inch and using the edge of the anvil you make a step in the material so you have about a 3/4 x 3/4  ball you work that into a point then you flatten it and that becomes your leaf. You stretch it out using a small hammers cross pein or a small ball pein to the desired size before adding in the veigns. the veigns should all be connected into straight lines like on a real leaf. Form there you can draw out the stem of the leaf from the material behind the step you made. wont take much maybe 2 inches of that thickness of material to give you a good length of thin stem which you can bend around to a nice design. All in all a good try for your first thing and nice to see your first thing wasnt a knife. I hope to see more from you in the future.

thx for the advise the frist thing was a knife last year just some spike ones but still 

11 minutes ago, Goblin79 said:

thx for the advise the frist thing was a knife last year just some spike ones but still 

No worries on the advice. Im sorry if it offended you about the knife thing. Its just nice to see people making other things especially as their first projects. I have done alot of knives myself recently because they sell pretty well but i got started making simple forged objects and they are still my favorite things to make. My first projects were simple J hooks from 1/4 inch round stock. Then an S hook, a J hook with a leaf end, tongs, hot punch, fire poker, dinner triangle and ringer and finally a rr spike knife, although to call what i made a knife would be crazy generous Its just really good to work on simpler projects first, gets people used to working the material, not afraid of the fire or the steel, used to tongs and hammer strokes. Keep up the good work though, hopefully you will post pics of you next leaf so we can see the progress!

what I was Tring to do was make my wife a cost hook that I said I would make a year ago the leaf design was spur of the moment because I wanted it thinner to be easer to screw down to the barn wood in using as a backer I will tri what uall said mane tomarro I'll have a chance to fire the forge back up in a ac guy so it's crazy at times during the summer

On 2016-07-05 at 2:49 PM, Dustin Quade said:

Did you intend for them to be so long? My main issue is that they dont look like real leaves.

Willow leaves are even longer. Real leaves can have a lot of different shapes and are more varied than the "blacksmith leave".

4 minutes ago, gote said:

Willow leaves are even longer. Real leaves can have a lot of different shapes and are more varied than the "blacksmith leave".

A fair point to be sure, thats why i was asking if that shape was what he was actually intending or if it was basically just the shape he eneded up with. Even if he was going for a willow leaf as you have suggested the shape is still off and i would have suggested a much more narrow taper to the point of the leaf and a slight curve at that end of it.

Three easy steps. I really have no idea what I'm doing here. I simply go with it and it turns into what it wants. I call this an Ivy leaf cuz I don't know what else to call it.