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I Forge Iron

A collection of improvised anvils


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I love your stand though it's not suitable for heavy work as it stands. Another figure at 90* on each end to make a box and plate on edge in the center to conduct impact energy directly to the ground would make it work a treat. I'd weld the center plate in an X, triangles are much more structural shape than 90* corners.

DARN I didn't see the more recent posts and we were typing at the same time. Gotta take a break when the wife wants to say something, you know. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Freshman at college went out to the scrapyard with me and picked up a 100# chunk of steel---round with a hook mounted on one side. I advised him to remove the hook and make a stand that will hold it on the flat or on the side for drawing.  US$20 for a 100 pound anvil...Make a handy upsetting plate too; when he upgrades.

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On 9/8/2017 at 10:20 PM, Charles R. Stevens said:

We have so many new smiths coming here with the common misconception that an anvil is a magical tool that looks like the acme product that fell on Wiley e coyote, we needed to show them what a real anvil looks like. 

Would any one have pictures of ancient anvils? I don't want to make problems for Glenn and co for mining the internet and causing copyright waves.

Sure

All you have to do is go outside and take a picture of a granite cobble (which, conveniently enough, has been listed and shown as an example) or a hardwood stump or log that's been stood up. They had to start somewhere, after all.

Even during the iron age, some families or settlements only had so much "wealth". I write it that way because wealth was usually in material value and commodities rather than gold and coin, as is popular belief. Those just had high material value (to put it immensely, incredibly simply), but I digress.

When it came to anvils, they usually only had a certain (small) size/surface area to work with and affording a larger sized anvil was... pretty much similar to (if not more out of the question than) today. So, if you've ever worked with fresh bloom iron, you'd know that consolidating it on a small surface is far from ideal, so you use a stump to beat it on because it doesn't introduce any (as many) impurities as a rock would as it would just burn away.

Anyway, sorry for the long response.

stone hammer and anvil egypt.jpg

pyrgos anvil.jpg

Blacksmith's Anvil stone.jpg

adalbol_anvil_stone.jpg

Screenshot_20200924-115528_YouTube.jpg

Screenshot_20200924-115611_YouTube.jpg

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Might have been a plus in ancient Egyptian society; didn't I read that "hairiness" was a Barbarian trait back then?

Anyway a 100# improvised anvil US$20 at the scrapyard recently; to the right is a gas forge shell we found in the scrapyard the same trip.  Too big as is common with new forge builders. It will be cut in half and make *2* forges.  The burner that came with it will be discarded and Frosty T burners used.

gasforgeshell1.jpg.18975f52e2f8b011a101d7e9006b925b.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/30/2020 at 11:35 AM, ThomasPowers said:

Might have been a plus in ancient Egyptian society; didn't I read that "hairiness" was a Barbarian trait back then?

Well, it was mainly because they valued hygiene over anything else... to the extent of bathing three times a day. The main reason for the hair removal was because of lice and to reduce heat. They even went as far as shaving their eyebrows and lashes (though I believe that was just the priests) Of course, certain hair styles were status specific, but generally, this was any "everybody" thing.

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Thank you Frosty!

The concrete is just there to hold it upright.  all the mass is actually resting on the wood which is in turn resting on the ground.  The "stump" is Cedar, because that's what I had and it's all twisty.  That culvert is holding 4 main logs in place, with two of them extending above the top and holding the anvil in place.  I figure the downward force of the mass and the hammer hitting the anvil should have minimal impact on the concrete culvert.  So far, what little banging on it I have done shows no movement at all and that post you see to one side of the anvil is actually about 2 feet deep in the ground.  

Been too busy to build the actual forge, but I have been practicing swinging the hammer (when I have a moment or two) on some boards to make sure I can hit it flat with consistency and also on some scrap copper just because.  I had to re-purpose the materials I had in mind for the JABOD for some of the wife's honeydo list, then the weather has been crap.  Oh well.  life moves on.

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It's probably fine, I hadn't looked closely enough I thought those were cobles instead of wood. Rounded rocks can move under impacts and maybe wedge out and break the culvert. That doesn't apply to your stand. I don't think anyway. 

Wet sloppy snow yesterday but nice glaze ice today. I understand the roads are a treat but the boys in the sander belly blades are on the job and virtually zero ditch divers in the morning rush hour traffic. Gotta love salty sand. :) 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Good that those boys are on the job.  It seems like every winter idiots out here forget how to drive in the white stuff.  I'm lucky I get to work from home.  So at least for this year, I don't have to deal with that.

Stay safe up there

 

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Work cancelled yesterday; only about 4" of snow and ice but that's rare enough that nobody has their frictionless driving skills up to date. (I still remember my Father taking us kids out to a big empty parking lot the first snow of the season and all of us practicing our skidding.  Great fun and it sure has helped me over the years!

2 Hour delay today; roads are wet, intense sun and high in the 50's today so by-bye snow/ice. Of course it will linger up at 10K feet; I can see that from the front door but we are in the valley at about 1/2 that.

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Oh yeah++  When I lived in Columbus Ohio during the big SUV craze; we'd get a good sized storm and during my commute I'd see a lot of 4wd SUV's zooming past me down the highway; actually saw some of the exact same ones in the ditch a bit further on where the road curved.

Folks out here tend to be a bit more cautious I believe; perhaps it's because of what a NM 4wheeler once told me: Four Wheel Drive doesn't prevent you from getting stuck; it just means that you get stuck in a much more difficult place to get out off, (and more expensive!).

I can take the back roads to the Explosive Laden Vehicle bypass into the University: wide, sparsely travelled and people tend to drive very carefully and politely on it...Helps too that the State Police station anchors the interstate end of it.

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Heh, heh, heh. 4 wheel drive is like any other tool, just having it doesn't impart the knowledge of how to use it. Yes, I CAN stop a 4x4 faster than a 2x4. Why? Before the advent of anti skid brakes, simple physics meant the front brakes on vehicles applied several times as much braking force because deceleration caused the vehicle's weight to shift forward. This not only increased traction to the front tires it reduced traction to the rear so if the brake forces were equal the rear tires would skid before the front tires causing vehicles to swap ends in a hard stop. That's spin out.

In slick conditions, be it ice of fresh rain on pavement the reduced traction can cause your front tires to skid while the rear tires are still turning. This results in two potential problems, First is lost of the ability to steer at all. Secondly old rear wheel drives meant the engine was still pushing the still turning rear wheels while the fronts were skidding. This meant a LOT of low speed rear end collisions at intersections.

How can 4x4 make a difference? The front and rear wheels are coupled mechanically so if one is turning they all are. You're a lot less likely to be passed by your own rear end and if the front wheels aren't skidding you can steer.

Of course 4x4 or heck anything before anti skid brakes does you no good if your solution to any problem while driving is to stomp on the brakes as HARD as you can. 

If you've watched the RV program, "worst drivers" the one thing you see in common with ALL vehicle skidding out of control are Brake lights. 

I used to take  folks to one of the lakes once they froze thick enough to drive on and we'd do some skidding. I love slick driving, you can learn to drift a vehicle at speeds slow enough to not even bend a rim. Of course you have to have sense enough to play drift driver at slow speeds and we all know how common sense is. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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I greatly surprised a friend one time by skidding around a stopped car.  He hadn't known how to steer a skid; or that you can somewhat.  I was taught that the rule for driving on ice was DON'T!  Don't do it if possible, stay at home!  If you have to: don't accelerate, don't turn and don't brake!    I used to have a favorite low water crossing that folks would drive their cars through several times in spring to help wash the salt off the undercarriage.

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I remember one day I was on patrol while it was snowing. We got a call that there were several teenagers sliding around in the Walmart parking lot. I pulled down there and advised them, someone had complained and they should go somewhere else to practice slick driving. I suggested the fairgrounds which were outside the city limits. As I was leaving, I gassed the unit and did two 360's NASCAR style and left. The next day I was called into the Chief's office and he said someone had complained about that. He was grinning as he said consider yourself reprimanded with a hand slap.:D He was from California and never learned to drive when it was slick so one of the officers had to chauffeur him around till it all melted.

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We used to get bad ice storms in Indiana, 1/2" of clear "glare ice" on the roads.  I remember the time the school bus started breaking a block away and slid past our bus stop.  The person in charge of cancelling school for weather that day slid off the road going into work and had to be picked up by a passing bus.  We thought it was poetic justice!

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Modern tires make a big difference too. It's easy to get in over your head, it happens to everybody now and then. Losing control is a different thing, I've only been in the ditch three times in the 48 years I've lived here, twice dodging an accident and the first time was when I learned about snow plows plowing the ditch. If you let the plow overhang the ditch drivers can't tell it from plowed pavement until you drop a tire into it and it sucks you in. My fault it was a good lesson about not cutting anything close in winter. 

The last 10 years I worked for the State was for road maintenance in the Anchorage camp. I loved winter, graveyard shift especially, once the drunking hour was over.  I live an hour's drive from the Anchorage yard and we worked 10 hr. shifts not counting a 1/2 hr. lunch and sometimes 15 mins for dispatch and another at end of shift so you could brief the foremen and next shift about what was and needed doing. It put my on the road about 11 hrs. a day. and the worse the conditions the more important it was I was out there. 

Roads are icy, covered in snow, drains are blocked my basement is filling up, the avalanche chutes are looking bad. etc. etc. Talk about a job to nurture the white knight in a boy. B)

Here's a too slick to do anything driving tip for you. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to do SOMETHING in a way other than with a raw egg under your foot, say swerve around a wreck that just happened in front of you. Put your vehicle in neutral, take your feet OFF the pedals and just coast around it. Put your vehicle back in gear with your foot on the gas before you touch the brake.

If you have an old school 2x4 with an automatic and won't stop, put it in neutral and brake GENTLY or let it coast to a stop.

Frosty The Lucky.

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