"Backyard Blacksmithing" pounding iron on the forge this evening!

Awsome find! Those are some very nice tools that you got there.

fishingpol you are right about the eagle anvil. It is a cast iron with a steel top. I use to have one, it wasn't in very good shape and you could see where the face was separating from the body.

 

Great score!

 

Hey fishingpol I have cleaned up the anvil and it has an eagle with spread wings clutching an anchor So you were dead right on that. I have been doing some research and it seems that some of these anvils were cast with soft cast iron on the bottom half and harder cast for the top half and horn and then the hardened steel for the striking surface and step down. Apparently some people hate this type of anvil while others love them. The "lovers" form a rather rabid cult following. The post vise is in good working shape now that my friend has cleaned and lubed it. May need to retemper the spring. Other sources have confirmed that it is most likely English made. The bench vise has seen some hard use and has some stress cracking. I got to use my cast welding skills to help it out. Looks good but only time and use will tell. Friend will be cleaning up the forge for a while. Some pics when he gets done. I am going to build a steel anvil stand with sand filled legs for the anvil. I will probably never use this anvil for heavy work. Mostly knives and small forgings. I have read that the best height for an anvil is "relaxed knuckle" height. For me, about 31". Seems too short for me. A lot of my stuff will be forming around and under the horn and at 31" that would require a lot of bending over. Does anyone have any insight in this matter?

 

Well that cleaned up real nice! The Fishers are supposed to stand up better and not sway on the face. The edges look good on yours. You can't go wrong with that anvil. What is the weight on it? I don't believe I asked.

As far as the spring, many were made out of mild steel and not spring steel. A quick re-heat to bring it back into shape should be all it needs.

As far as height, I am gorilla knuckled at about the same as you 31". I would not want it any higher. I believe you would not get a great hammer strike. At 31", the hammer face is parallel to the face of the anvil. Any higher, the heel of the hammer will be striking the material. If you have a large round of firewood say 34" long, stand it up and set the anvil on it. See what is comfortable, cut and inch off until you find your height and build your metal base off that number.

Speaking of parallel, I missed out on a Fisher parallel screw vise last year. Two towns over for a great price. Timing was bad.

If you are on Facebook, there is a Fisher Norrris anvil museum page worth following. He has I believe the rights to the Fisher Norris name and the information is extensive.

 

Weight is 102 lbs. so not a huge anvil. Good advise about the height. I already started making the stand for a finished height of 33" but I can cut it off and re-weld the feet ant any time. I will check out the Fisher Norris museum. Thanks again for the info.

 

Well not sure how I’ve missed the last bunch of posts, but I’ve got some reading to do!

We redid a few things in the bedroom and we wanted some bedside shelves. I had an old barn beam in the barn and used my Alaskan mill to slice some boards for shelves. Then fired up the forge today in a snow storm. There was no snow on the dozer when I started and this was after. Not the most pleasant or the easiest to work in, but I got the shelf hangers made. Nothing special, or perfect but I think they’ll work. I’ve been saying for two years I was going to frame in a little shop here aaannnnddddd welll...

 

[/QUOTE]
And hydraulic vice?...

 

And hydraulic vice?...[/QUOTE]
You betcha!

 

Looking good J. Dirt. Very functional.

I'm going to have to take some of that flat stock with a single twist and hammer it flat. It would probably make an hourglass shape, but visually it could be interesting used for a strap. Might be a weak spot, more decorative I guess.

 

I’ll have to give it a shot too. Might be interesting? I only went 180 degrees on these. Wonder if you could forge weld it on itself once you flattened the twist for some extra strength and pattern?

 

I think it would be an easy forge weld. Twist, yellow heat, flux both sides and smack it!

 

1”x 3/16” is what I had on this one.

 

Cool shelf, Joe!

 

Made a shop stand for the anvil I recently acquired. Legs are sand filled so the stand part is very quiet. I did not use the cast in hold down lugs because the one under the horn conflicted with the leg underneath and I didn't want to make the table larger to clear it. There are two curved "keepers" welded to the table that hold the anvil and wood pad in place. The hold downs keep it from jumping. The anvil has 4 protrusions or pins, one near each corner underneath that I believe had the purpose of keeping the anvil in place when strapped to a stump or log round. I didn't want to grind these off so I added a wood softener pad for them to dig into. Also helps keep things quiet. Feet have holes in case I ever want to bolt it down.

 

That looks great!

still waiting for uncle to dig the anvil out of his horde! He has been telling me it’s mine for years lol!

 

The little forge that could! A friend just gave me a small propane knife forge that he could never get to work right. This is the kind of burner that uses a mig welding tip for an orifice. Turns out it had the wrong regulator on it. I put a medium pressure 1-15 psi regulator on it and it works fine. Actually heated up a knife blank of L6 alloy and beat on it a bit. Comes up to orange in about 3-4 min and then reheats very quickly. Those darned thin pieces sure cool fast though! May try a knife from a file here shortly.

 

Very nice!!!

 

Thin stuff is challenging to heat. Got to pay attention to burning it in half..... don’t ask me how I know.....

 

The base turned out well and it looks like a lot of thought went into it. It should serve you well until a 200 lb. anvil shows up.

Gas forges are nice and convenient. Limited, but easy set up.