Forget An Anvil! Get yourself an ASO!

Anvil Shaped Objects are just what the doctor ordered for a beginner. Forget trying to find a damaged anvil for 500 bucks, check out other options for much cheaper!

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[paulmorneault]

I have been a professional blacksmith since the early 90' and what this man is saying is 100% correct. Mass is key.

Around the world: Watch smiths working in countries like India, Philippines, SE Asia, South & Central America, etc. on youtube. You will see most smiths using simple pieces of scrap steel as an anvil.

Don't use gray cast iron: It will stay soft, not work harden and eventually crumble. Steel will work harden over time so your scrap steel anvil will harden with use.

Work hardening: Don't expect extreme hardness from work hardening. Just a bit harder. You can excelletrate hardening early on by hammering the edge of your improvised anvil as your hammer is probably much harder than your improvised anvil.

Flame hardening: If, through spark testing, you find that your scrap anvil is higher in carbon than mild steel. You can flame harden the edges of your improvised anvil by heating the edge with a torch and using the coldness of the anvil's mass along with water to harden the edge of your anvil. A garden hose at full flow without the nozzle works well for this.

Forging cold steel: If you are denting the surface of your improvised anvil while attempting to forging hot steel, it is probably because your hot steel is not hot enough.

Black heat: Remember, at the temperature that you no longer see a red color, is about the temperature of what is known as a Black-heat, This black-heat is actually harder than when the the steel you are forging is cold. So keep the steel you are forging in the upper to middle forging temperature range. Tool steels have a lower forging temperature range than mild steel.

Heavy hammer: By using a heavy anvil and hammer, (A hammer you can work with comfortably), you will move more metal for each blow of the hammer and actually add heat to the piece you are forging so you can forge longer between heats.

Hammer mass vs speed: There is a balance between, mass of the hammer and the speed of the hammer's head. Human strength: Heavy hammer = slow speed. Light hammer = fast speed. Our muscles work most efficiently and can do more work before tiring when they are moving fast as compared to moving slow. (For example, look at professional bicyclists. They keep the cadence of the peddles at 60 or more revolutions per minute and adjust their gears according to the terrain as this is the most efficient and least tiring.

Mushrooming: If you find that you are mushrooming the surface of the steel you are forging, this is because the hammer is too light for the mass of steel you are forging. Either work on smaller cross-sections of steel or become stronger and work with a larger hammer.

Cold anvil: If you are forging in winter, on a cold anvil, heat your anvil before you start as a cold anvil will suck lots of heat out of your work being forged.

Weight of the anvil: Ratio of about 50 to 1 is ideal. So a 3 lb hammer ought to be used with a 150 lb anvil. This is ideal. Half this ratio will still work of course, just not as well and less efficient. This also applies to the size stock you are forging. Smaller material cross-sections can be forged with a smaller ratio. Plus figure the mass of what your anvil is resting on. A 50 lb anvil, for example, securely held down and bedded to it's base, so that there is no gap between the anvil and base, will certainly help. This way, the mass of the base, concrete for example or other suitable mass will help the anvil have more mass. This way, you can get away with a lighter anvil.

The edge of the anvil: The vast majority of the work is done on the edge of the anvil. The edge of the anvil and the edges of the hammer ought to have a radius. For the anvil, on one end the edge has a small radius, on the other end there is a large radius of as much as a 1/4 inch. In between these two ends of the anvil's edge, the radius transitions. This way the smith has access to any radius desired. This is done on both the far and near edges of the anvil. Remember, radius is half of the diameter.

The hammer face: The center portion is flat. As you move toward the outer edges, the radius of the face of the hammer face keeps decreasing to about a 3/16 inch radius at the outer edges of the hammer's face. This is done on all four edged of the square faced hammer. This way you have access to all sorts of different radii on the face of the hammer depending on what part of the face of the hammer you allow to impact the surface of the work you are forging simply by twisting the hammer a bit when your hand is in the air at the top of your swing. Anywhere from flat to a 3/8 inch round )3/16 inch radius surface.

Sharp edges: You almost never use sharp edges on the anvil's or hammer's face, so don't have any.

Cold shuts: Sharp forging edges on anvils and hammers will create cold shuts. Always avoid these.

Anvil Orientation: Remember that the orientation of the anvil's mass ought to be inline with the direction of the hammer's blow. Think vertically. Hammer moving vertically and the mass of the anvil also vertically in line with movement of the hammer.

Anvil base: Have an anvil base that is small enough so you can stand with your right leg against the anvil. I have a tripod base. I usually have my right foot a bit under the anvil as I work.

Standing at the anvil: With your right leg against the anvil. This minimizes bending over to reach the anvil. This way your right shoulder is above the far edge of the anvil and your arm is swing inline with the far edge of the anvil. This way the right edge of the square hammer face is in line and parallel with the anvil's edge. You are not bending over either. Provided your anvil is at the correct height for you.

Feedback loop: As you work, you create a feed-back loop between what you see as a result of your last hammer blow and how you hammer's face was oriented. You adjust your hammer's face for the next blow, then strike the work, then observe the result by seeing the light that reflects off the surface of your work, then adjust your hammer's face for the next blow and so on and so on. This is all done very quickly. In the process, you are training your mind and body to forge and move the metal as you wish.

Hammer handle: It is very important to have a bit of squareness to the hammer's handle. The reason for this is that the hand's contact with the handle tells the brain the orientation of the hammer's face. Try forging with a hammer that has around cylindrical handle. It is impossible to know the exact angle that the hammer's face is in relation to the stock and the anvil's face.

How to hammer: Study the forging style of Uri Hoffi. The style he teaches saved my blacksmithing career as I was hurting myself by not holding and using the hammer in an ergonomic way. Keep the hammer handle in your hand in such a way that the hammer, which will bounce when it strikes, is allowed to rebound. I do this by actually holding the hammer handle on the right and left side of the handle. Not top and bottom. Never with the thumb on the top of the handle !!!! Between my thumb which is pressing on the side of the handle closest to me and my index finger and a little bit of my ring finger on the far side of the handle. When coming down I squeeze a little with my other fingers, not much. When the hammer strikes the surface, the head is allowed to bounce upward. In this way, I allow the hammer to bounce up after it hits the work being forged by allowing the hammer to pivot between my thumb and index finger. Now the hammer head is more vertically above the handle. I bring the hammer up and prepare for the next swing, . This is very important. If you hold the hammer too tight, you will stop the hammer from bouncing up after it strikes the work. This shocks your hand/arm as your hand and arm are still traveling downward as the hammer head wants to travel upward. This also results in more work as you have stopped the hammer's upward movement, then have to restart it again.

The angles. So, depending on the angle between the anvil face and the bottom surface of the stock which is determined by how high the smith holds the stock above the face of the anvil as the stock rests on the far edge of the anvil's face, determines the profile of the anvil that is engaging with the stock being forged. As the hammer is traveling vertically down, and the hammer is twisted a bit to the right, the iron is being forged by both the top and bottom radiuses at the same time. These two radiuses working together and will quickly move the metal in the desired direction. This is especially true when forging a point. The two radiuses work like two rolling pins. Points in one heat are easy this way.

One heat points: Taking the info on "The angles" above, hold the end of your stock just past the edge of the anvil with your left hand allowing the stock to angle downward. With the hammer, strike the work with the hammer face slightly twisted to the right. This will create a matching angle between the stock & anvil and stock & hammer face. Strike so the edge of hammer is directly above the edge of anvil to pinch the stock and make a nub on the end of the stock. Of course you are twinning your stock 90 degrees each time for square and round stock. After establishing a nub, continue to pull the stock back as you make 90 degree twists. Focus the on the nub that is continuing to get smaller. Reduce the power of your blows as you go. The nub will continue to getting hotter because it is not loosing heat into the rest of the stock, anvil or hammer and only the radius of the edge of the anvil and hammer are making contact with the steel. After roughed out, smooth to the desired finish surface.

May this be helpful to all smiths and aspiring smiths. :)

[hardeehat]

I work at an oil change joint, and we have a few railroad guys get the company truck serviced there. My grandpa was looking for a short section of track to use instead of the "anvil" on his vice. I asked the guy if they had any scrap track that we could buy a section of...he came back an hour later with a one foot section of railroad track, and said happy birthday. Never hurts to ask.

[tomasmerino]

When I started with the idea of knifemaking I was working with my brother (he's a carpenter) so I started looking around to see how hard would it be to get all the tools I needed... A week or so we finished a deck around a pool in a house of a... hmm.. rich man to say something... Well, we finished, we were taking all the tools and machines from the pool to my brother's truck through an alley (you know, at the side of the house, with trees and plants at both sides) and suddenly I look to one side and there was an anvil, a 76 kg fking anvil! The owner of the house was walking right behind me, I looked him and said "Hey, what's up with that?" (the best poker face I've ever done) and he said something like "It's been sitting there for quite some time, do you want it? it's yours"

Damn, I have never been (and probably never will again) so happy having to lift a 76 kilograms objet from the ground.

[xXWhatzUpHerzXx]

I have no interest in doing any of this in myself, I'm just fascinated by the work you do. What I wanted to say was I really enjoy how quick to the point you were with this video and explained things instead of dragging it on like most videos of *anything* on the internet. Thank you!

[chriswaters]

Great advice. I have been a full time professional blacksmith for 20 years and I tell this to my students all the time. Here in Canada anvils are even harder to come by than in the US. I can't tell you how useful a big chunk of steel is. Even though I have a 450 lbs anvil in the shop those big pieces of steel get used a lot.

[rasnac]

I am not blacksmith, but I needed a small anvil for some of my crafting. But I couldn't find an affordable small anvil, so I bought a sledgehammer head instead and I am using it as an anvil ever since. It is heavy, surfaces are flat, it is tempered steel, has a hole in the middle that can be used as a hardy hole, narrow triangular side can be used as the horn of an anvil. It is quite useful.

[ellwoodwd]

A good option to railroad track is crane rails. You can find them for scrape or new and the profiles are larger (up to 4" wide x 6" tall) than railroad track and they are not railroad property. Crane rail is designated by "CR" followed by three number which are the weight of the rail per yard (3 foot). Example: CR135 weighs 135lbs/yard.
Never thought about going to a machine shop. Great tip, thanks!!

[davidmoran]

I very much enjoy your videos. While I won't be doing any blacksmithing, I have always been impressed by the skill and fine detail I have seen in blacksmith work. The cabinet hinges, in a colonial style, that I watched being made at a demonstration were truly amazing.

[MaturePatriot]

I built a railroad anvil in 1969-70 in high school machine shop. We first heated it almost a translucent red/white, then buried it in lime for 3 days to soften it. We completed machining using a lath, milling machine, and drill press. After machining/polishing, we heat treated, hardened and tempered the anvil. We used it in my father-in-laws body shop for over 20 years.

[edgeeffect]

You want an anvil? You've just gotta find that cliff edge that Roadrunner kept throwing Wile-E Coyote off... there'll be anvils a'plenty at the bottom of that!

[northernraven]

You’re the man on this advice. I’m going to start calling around to see what I can dig up. Sköl

[eugenefosmire]

I just bought a hunk of steel from my local scrap yard. It is 12"x 8" x 2.5" about 80 lbs for $20. Thank you for the advice on an alternative to an anvil. I go to an auction Saturday for a forge!

[hunterd]

for a beginner, also is good to have something that is mild and not hardened steel, as beginning blacksmiths tend to miss the work and strike the surface of the anvil and hardened steel can chip and send a shard flying where mild steel will not.

[andrewakrause]

Scrapyards DO buy rail, but they'll only buy it from the railroads themselves. What you want to do is find a major scrap yard, one that actually has it's own rail head - Newell in East Point Georgia is one. Go on a saturday about an hour before closing time, because they're not busy and they'll actually have time to talk to you. Ask around.

What happens is that the rail companies when they replace their rail will sell them to the scrap yards. The scrap yards turn around and sell them to the mills, but the mills can't take rail into the smelter because of the size. So, the scrap yards have guys out there cutting up rail into 4' sections. They'll charge you a few bucks for their time, but you can get out of there with a chunk of rail. A few hours with a grinder and and a six pack of beer later, you should have yourself a small steel anvil.

[k-entertainment]

Forget the ASO, forget the anvil too. Just grab the red-hot metal with your bare hands and beat it into submission like a REAL blacksmith would.

Kidding of course, awesome informative video. Great personality. You deserve more subs.

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

Great advice....a big barrier to any craft is expense and or scarcity of tools.

[wigwam]

Dude thank you. I just got less stupid and it feels good

[TormentedVet_Reactions]

i've been looking at getting into blacksmithing for a while and have watched a endless amounts of videos and i have to admit this is probably the best advise, that actually makes sense, that i have seen yet. thanks!

[topherd]

I used a slab of concrete forever until I made blades I could actually sell. Once I sold enough blades I was fortunate enough to buy an anvil from NC Anvil for around 300$... but in reality— you don’t NEED one to make a straight blade. Thanks for getting the word out.

Ps- I started with just a flat slab of concrete, a hole in the ground, a hair dryer, some coal, and an ordinary 2lb hammer.

[dylanbennett]

Great advice! Im new into blacksmithing and knifemaking and I looked into getting an anvil but dont like the prices so I thought outside the box! My grandfather owns a huge construction company and has a large collection of larg equipment so when a fork from his large frontend loader got bent I took it and cut me a 18inch section off (its about 4 inches thick the full 18 inch length and about 5 1/2 inches wide) it works like a dream!