Holland Anvil Desktop Dishing Bowl

[TLBarclay]

Hello everyone my name is Thomas Barclay and I am new to I Forge Iron. I recently submitted an idea to Holland Anvil in Holland Michigan for a new Dishing Anvil which they just added to their website yesterday. After speaking with Greg Hagen the owner and his cad designer a design was agreed upon and it is now being sold. Greg and the team at Holland Anvil are great people and it was a joy working with them, and I hope all of the blacksmithing community enjoys the Dishing Anvil I helped design. 

[Rojo Pedro]

Thats cool. Hopefully they named it 'The Barclay'

I will have to look up dishing anvil but a picture would certainly help others like me to understand what it is

[TLBarclay]

Holland Anvil in Holland Michigan now has a 50 lb Desktop Bowl 3 x 10 inches made in Ductile Iron or H 13.

This is a very simple shape for any size of dishing, and doubles as the perfect beginner traveling anvil.

Special thanks to Thomas Barclay for the help with the design.

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Thomas, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a better chance of hooking up with members living within visiting distance for some face to face time. 

Nice new tool, well done! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Great design, should really sell a lot.

[arkie]

Great idea.. congrats on getting it marketed.  Now.....design some more with different radii for different dishing projects!!!!!!

[Iron Kitten Forge]

I picked one up, it's pretty sweet. I got the ductile iron version. Now i just need a forge big enough to heat larger sheet metal so i can make bigger bowls

 

[Frosty]

You don't need a BIG forge Mr. Anderson you need a forge to heat sheet steel. Think a shallow refractory spittoon with burners arranged so the flame swirls around the interior and exits at the top. Placed in a refractory or fire brick table you lay your work over the fire pot and heat the area you want.

An old friend name of Chris Ray made a version, to heat large areas. He routinely worked 1/4" and thicker plate with the thing and it wasn't all that large IIRC the table was 4'x4'.

Frosty The Lucky.

[foundryguy]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:46 AM, TLBarclay said:

Hello everyone my name is Thomas Barclay and I am new to I Forge Iron. I recently submitted an idea to Holland Anvil in Holland Michigan for a new Dishing Anvil which they just added to their website yesterday. After speaking with Greg Hagen the owner and his cad designer a design was agreed upon and it is now being sold. Greg and the team at Holland Anvil are great people and it was a joy working with them, and I hope all of the blacksmithing community enjoys the Dishing Anvil I helped design. 

This thread popped up today. Thanks for this idea Tom! It seems Armour people use it? We sell abou the same amount of ductile and H13 bowls. One famous artist I will not mention here uses is upside down as a floor upsetting block. The H13 model. He says it sits flat because of the bowl form compared to a flat plate he used for years. Thanks again for bringing your idea to us!!! We really appreciate you! 

 

[Iron Kitten Forge]

Do you have a picture of what you're describing, Frosty? Would it be like a open top gas forge? 

[Frosty]

I'm afraid any pics of Chris's table forge are hopefully archived on the old "Artmetal" email list site. It'd be close time wise to "Chris Ray's" "Jig Master" emails. It might even be visible in one of his pics but I don't think there's a picture of it specifically. There was some discussion about burners though, I was just entering the scene with the T burner and Ron Riel with his burner. 

Visualize a cylindrical hole made from refractory with a rounded bottom. Maybe 1/2 way to the table face the bore narrows and then flares to the surface. Think of a stubby rocket engine with a very large nozzle. It's a very spittoon like hole.

The burner was not quite tangentially mounted in the cylinder above the bottom and angled slightly upwards. I don't recall how many burners Chris had in his though I do recall him only lighting what he needed for the work. Just to pick a number out of the air, one burner for say 16ga to 12ga, two burners for 12ga to 10ga, three burners for 8ga to 1/4".

Chris was a wildly imaginative, creative and prolific iron sculptor, he passed away the day I was diagnosed diabetic. I really miss Chris he would've been a natural on Iforge. This is about all I can locate of a gallery. http://www.chrisray.com/mansect/index.htm

No, those are not actual numbers I'm just illustrating that he used different numbers depending on the size and thickness of the stock.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

These are some photos I took last month of Chris Ray’s “Wissahickon Valley Gate” at John F. Collins Park, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. 

(By an odd coincidence, I caught the bus across the street from this park for five years (ages 10-15) and never noticed it. It was only after I changed schools and started talking a different route home that I got interested in blacksmithing.)

As for bowl making, I generally use an oxypropane torch to spot-heat my workpieces. I do occasionally consider making something like armorer Eric Thing’s sheet metal forge (as described on Anvilfire; similar to the one shown in THIS VIDEO), perhaps powered by a NARB.

[Frosty]

Ayup, that's Chris Ray alright His imagination was otherworldly. Give him the room and there was no telling what kind of critters he'd include. I don't believe he'd make un-crazy things, too boring. 

I skimmed through the video. I sure wish people wouldn't include the sound of burners, at best it's very distracting. I just mute it so I don't know if there was anything of value said. 

Frosty The Lucky.