Ex-Glacis plate?

I didn't have training wheels on my bike as a kid so no sense in having a training anvil. I'm still using my first anvil, a Vulcan and have acquired several more over the years, a Hay Budden and an MP farriers anvil along with the improvised bulldozer anvil.

Forgeclay Works:  Sounds like my youngest kid.  Just hopped on his big brother's bike and took off on the first try! So in your opinion I'm good with just buying a good one and I don't have much to worry about in damaging a giant block of hardened steel? I don't know what I'm expecting to happened (explosions, collapsing molecular bonds, creation of a black hole, whatever  ) with tinkering around with making some finials in a spring swage for a wrought iron fence, and hammering out a set of tools, but I am a bit of a bull in a china shop sometimes.   I'm probably just over thinking it, it's not like im going to be swinging a 20 pound sledge against cold admantium, but I would rather over-think then end up with a $1500 dinged up mess that will need resurfaced. I know they last 100's of year with care. Just trying to soak in some knowledge.  I'm probably going to end up making a block, buying the atlas and the refflinghaus since when I let it be known to my family, my wife and two kids want in on the fun as well. 

Just buy ONE anvil to start out. Many if not all of us tend to overthink when getting into something new. You asked a group of experienced folks and are taking the opinions and suggests into consideration. 

Yeah, that's pretty flawed logic, hardly blacksmitherly at all! 

Start with the basic tools, worry about spring swages when the need arises. You can do anything a spring swage does by hand, they come in handy when you start doing production runs or have a process you do repeatedly enough to make it worth the time and effort required to take up a large part of your anvil with ONE specialty tool.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty Im building a gate and 300 foot of fence with acorn finials.  Kinda need the swag unless I want to just jump into the mississippi.  I think...

The multiple anvils are so the kids leave mine alone

Just did the math on how many acorns.  Maybe I don't need one because one every 4 inches , 900, sounds awful just for some decorations and I'd be too miserable to even jump in a river. 

A gate and 300 feet of fence is pretty ambitious. My next project is gonna be some towel hangers for the bathroom. 

On 12/1/2021 at 2:19 PM, SupaConducta said:

I want to get into blacksmithing by learning on small projects and then getting into knives, and hopefully in a few years or decades become skilled enough to make historical weapon replicas and locks

Lol, so you consider 300' of railing, 900 acorns and a gate a small project?

 

 

Anvil, project size is relative.  I come from the film industry where cities are built in a month. I'm not sure I'm going back to the industry at all due to a work accident giving me some time to reflect. I'm pretty much done with 16 hour days and don't look forward to going back to that lifestyle. I have been waiting on Workers comp for 2.5 years to settle. It was settled a few weeks ago and now i can get a minor surgery and get on with my life...and get some new toys. 

It's not that fancy of a project most of it is fabricated bar.  The fence is more of a down time project for my old crew where I make the fancy bits for the top at my leisure. And due to the amount of finials, those will probably have to wait until I get access to a power hammer.  Who knows, those might get shopped out since I'm not too into manufacturing tedium. Been there - done that with my fresh greenery wreath and garland company. I do the special orders and give the tedium to the hourly employees. 

The fence is still in the planning stages, a little marble rolling around my head saying pick me! My wife is pushing for a woven wooden fence that can stand up to hurricanes since we've replaced the dog ear board kind twice in ten years and it needs to be replaced again. Just considering my options out loud. 

Anyway what I want and what is going to happen are two different things. The small, learning hammer technique and forging projects are more like keychain fobs or whatever is in the project books, making some tools, etc.  with historical recreations being the eventual end goal.

Francis Whitaker told the story of his first job at the Yellin shop, which was to forge 400 decorative rosettes for the Federal Reserve Bank in NYC. When he was done, he went back to look at the first ones he'd made, and remade about 10-20 of them. Forging that many acorns (300 or 900) will certainly give you a LOT of hammer control. I say go for it.

Yeah, 900 acorn finials is in the realm of large enough production runs to justify a spring swage, I concur. 

As strange as it sounds I get that much fence and gate not being a large project. Size, oh sure but a lot less complex than it sounds. Then again I grew up working in Father's production shop and that sort of project is pretty natural for me. 

I'll bet you're happy to be out of the film making business, I have a couple friends who were theater prop and scene makers and they told some pretty brutal stories. Films or lord help the help TV series scene and prop crews must have terrible burn out rates.

If you run into issues with the project, give a shout I  may have an idea or two that'll help. Maybe not but I like talking anyway. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 300 foot forged fence? an 900 forged acorns is a much bigger blacksmithing project than anything I’ve done!

Lol I’m happy when I spend a day making a few hardy tools, 

now building barb wire fence on the other hand, it’s nothing to build several miles of that stuff around here, sure it’s a lot of work but it’s pretty simple compared to forging a 300 foot custom fence! 

I can’t wait to see the pictures! I bet it will be awesome! 

Thanks for the help guys.  I'll let you know how things turn out! 

PICTURES! Show us PICTURES or we won't believe it.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty if my wife talks me out of it, I'll just fence in the neighbor's yard. They might be mad that they can't get out of their driveway but whatever.

Once you get the neighbors fenced in and parking on the street what're you going to do with the gate? 

Frosty The Lucky.