Accidental Anvil

Some time back a friend of mine gave me a bunch of tools he decided he didn't need while cleaning out his garage. As I was loading them into my truck he said he had a block of steel to give me if I wanted it. It turned out to be a block measuring 4”x4”x9.25” and weighing nearly 50 pounds. I jumped at the offer. I had no idea, at the time, what I would/could do with it but, I loaded it before he could think twice.Time passes and it sat in my forge and acted more as a conversational piece than anything production worthy.

At that same time, I was doing regular work in the forge making this or that. Occasionally I would get frustrated because I'd have to put a step or shoulder in a piece of steel I was working which requires the use of my anvil’s edge. The problem is that my anvil is quite old and had a pretty hard life before I came along and most of my edges are chipped and damaged. There are ways to refinish the faces of anvils but it don't really want to do that so I made due with what I have.

One day while trying to organize my work area I had to move the block in order to brush off the forge tabletop. I set it on the face of my anvil and resumed cleaning. When I went to move it back I looked at it and an obvious solution came to mind. I could dress the edges of this block of steel to whichever radius I want. I could even put a few different ones on there which is what a lot of Smith's did in the past. This way I could get the edge work surface I wanted and not have to drastically alter my anvil. I grabbed my angle grinder with a flapdisk on it and went to work. I made one edge nice and round another one was a sharper round and I left a couple edges at 90°.

Once finished with that I stood there and looked at the block and thought maybe I should weld on some feet so I could keep it from moving all over the place while I'm working on it. I don't have a welder in the forge that could handle that kind of job so I took it to work where there are plenty of welders available. At lunch I set everything up and just as I was going to strike an arc i saw a bracket used to attach truck bodies to frames hanging on the side of the bench I was at. It's angled stock with decent sized hole in a nice solid plate of steel and I thought, “That looks like something i could turn into a serviceable hardy hole.” Most hardy holes are somewhere from ¾” to 1” square so as to accept a hardy tool. Hardy tools are usually different types of tools with a square peg base that fit into the hardy hole on the anvil and aid the blacksmith in certain ways like bending, cutting and shaping.

I cut the bracket off the table and cleaned it up. I then looked around for some steel tubing with a 1” inner diameter. I found some that had a decent wall thickness and cut off a section long enough to hold any of the tools I owned. I then used a die grinder to square out the round hole in the bracket to get my tube, positioned the tube and welded it in place and used a sander to flatten out the face of the hardy hole. Then it was just a matter of welding it to one end of the block. Even though I have a state structural welding certification, I don't weld full time so my welds are fairly ugly but very functional. I welded it up and sanded it to my satisfaction.

As a stood there looking at it I remembered a chunk of kelly bar I had at the forge which has a hole drilled in it. I thought that would work as a pritchel hole even thought it's quite a bit larger than most standard ones. Pritchel holes are commonly used to aid in punching holes in metal and are usually around 1/2" in diameter. I figure if i need to, I can make a reducer to fit in the hole. I brought the piece I to work, cut it down to size and welded it on the opposite end. It was around this point I figured I might as well face the fact that I was building an anvil or at least an (ASO) anvil shaped object.

Once I settled on that it was time to decide what to do about a horn. The horn is commonly shaped as a tapered offset cone. Given the resources I has this wasn't really feasible so I opted to weld on a couple chunks of used machine pins I salvaged out of the shop scrap bin. I cut those to length, welded them on and sanded them to shape. I saw that I never got around to welding on the feet so I did that and as I was positioning it I got to look g at the hardy hole bracket and realized that I wanted to make that bracket a little more sturdy so I weld scrap diving again and found some decent plate stock, trimmed it to fit and welded it across the bottom and rear of the bracket effectively closing most of the bracket up.

So, that's that. I meant to do a little grinding to make a use out of something that was in the shop and the next thing I know I have a 65 lb ASO. I classify this as an ASO because it doesn't have a hardened face that I'm aware of. It will be serviceable as an auxiliary work surface and for small work but the majority of my work will be done on the shop anvil. I haven't ruled out welding a hardened top plate on this thing but it's just not necessary to do that right now. I imagine it will get more use as the shouler block I had intended it to be but it might work as a secondary anvil if I have a visitor to the shop who wants to doodle around. Regardless, I'm pretty proud of my little accidental anvil.

October update

Greetings everyone!
A few posts back I said that I wanted to post at least once a month here and I succeeded for a couple months but then dropped off again until my last post in September. I'm a little bummed at my lack of posting but ultimately I just have to try again.

I know the main reason for lack of posting is that when I want to assemble a post I really like inserting images and hyperlinks to add to the content or aid in giving anyone who reads this something interesting and engaging. The problem is currently I end up having to use my phone and the Blogger app to assemble posts and while it's functional it is a far cry from doing it on my laptop.

So obviously the answer is going forward I will try to utilize both. Simple update posts I will do here on the phone and more complex, in depth posted will be done at home where I can make them as filled with stuff as I please.

I do, at this time, post more often on Facebook and Instagram so look for me there and if you haven't already "liked" my pages, I would be honored to have you in my social media circle.

I am also planning on setting up a "Tailgate" post where I will have a list of things I have for sale. I'm doing this in the short term rather than selling on Etsy for a variety of reasons. As inventory changes (meaning if inventory sells) I will update the list.

Thank you so much for the support and I look forward to sharing much more with you!

Rain Gauge

I recently made a rain gauge for a wonderful friend and neighbor Shirley. She had been admiring the first gauge I made for my Dad and asked about having one made. I looked around the shop and found a decent length of 1/2" square stock and some smaller round stock and decided I had the material to make one.

I took the round stock and squared it with the idea of putting twists in the branches that hold the glass tube that actually collects the rain.

I cut a section of the half inch stock tapered and bent it to weld on for a stability leg on the main gauge staff.

I then flattened and scrolled the branches and welded them to the main staff.

Cleaned it up, painted and delivered! All in all, it was a bit heavy but turned out really nice.

Forge Improvement Update!

Fox River Forge resides in Wisconsin in what was primarily a storage shed without electricity or insulation. This means that for a good portion of the year it is cold in the shop and there are weeks where it's just too cold to work. It's cold inside the shop and the tools, specifically the anvil, are so cold I end up burning way more fuel that is tolerable to make even simple items. This is hugely inconvenient as the time off leads to atrophy of skills and potential degradation of equipment and supplies.

This year that changes!

My folks, with some guidance from my Jessie I think, presented me with a gift card to get a torpedo heater from a regional hardware store called Menards. This is very exciting as I will finally be able to continue working and learning and building up inventory on through the winter.

After taking some measurements and figuring out what size I needed I settled on a Dyna-Glo Delux. I went and picked it up and spent some time reading about how to set it up and use it safely. I am, admittedly, the type of person who will only look at directions if I can't get something to work or have already hurt myself using it incorrectly. However, I did a bunch of research on it this time as it has the capacity to not only burn down my shop but severely hurt or kill me in the process. So having done my research, a couple days ago I gave it a test run and let me tell you, IT WAS GREAT. It was snowing out and I was smithing away happily in my apron with a t-shirt over a thermal undershirt. I was able to work comfortably the whole time.

One of the things I made that day was an appreciation gift for the Fastenal representative who supplies the business I earn a living at. He supplies a variety of hardware we use in the shop including bolts and nuts, so I made him a bottle opener out of one of the bolts he supplied.
My good friend Cliff, who was the one who hand-crafted my apron, came up to visit while i was working and took some pictures.

I’m looking forward to being able to keep the shop open and productive. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and wish all of you a wonderful, happy and healthy New Year.

December Update

One of the most popular items I currently make are bottle openers made from scrap steel diamond plate (also known as check-plate or treadplate). These are fairly popular because of the material and, modesty aside, they work well and are a conversation starter. After making several of these I got the idea that I’d like to try to make a corkscrew.


So I started messing around with some scrap square stock and came up with a design I like wherein I heat and twist the bar in a couple directions then use a grinder to sand of the edges into a square again. This gives it a very neat pattern while providing a texture that's comfortable and easy to grip. Next was the screw. This turned out to be a little more tricky. The first one I made ended up being too big to fit in the cork or even the neck of the bottle so I used thinner stock. The thinner stock heated up and cooled really fast and getting a tight uniform coil was quite a challenge. I decided to make a jig. I found some round stock that matched the inner diameter I was looking for, cut a slot in the top to hold the tip of the round stock, heated my piece and wrapped it around the jig a few times. Once it cooled a bit, I tapped it off the jig and began trying to tweak the coil and tip into proper shape. This became quite frustrating as heating it in the forge meant that the whole coil was heating up and as I was moving the part I wanted to adjust, the whole thing was moving around and I seemed to just be making things worse so I stopped for the day to do some research.


A few days later I was working on a truck at work and needed to heat up a bolt shank that had frozen in place and broken off but it was in a location where I couldn’t use an oxy/acetylene torch set. I went and got the shops little Berz-o-matic bottle torch to heat it up. As I was heating up the shank I realized that this might do the trick for getting the corkscrew adjusted. I went and bought my own bottle torch, wrapped a new coil and then, using the bottle torch, i was able to heat exactly what I wanted to move. Within a few minutes I had a coil that I was confident would thread into and pull out a cork.
Then came the matter of attaching the coil to the handle in a secure but aesthetic way. I opted for drilling a hole, threading the coil shank through the handle and welding it on the top and bottom. I then used a sanding disk to clean off the top weld leaving a smooth finish. This worked out very well. After spraying some clear-coat on it I suddenly had a corkscrew!

Neat….now what?


I decided to give it to a friend of mine for her birthday. I got a wood box and a wooden “N” ( her first initial) and made a display box for the corkscrew and one of my bottle openers and gave it to her. She was thrilled and I was pleased this little experiment had gone well.

Sometime later, I decided to make another one to see if I could sell it. I made one up and took it on a group camping trip to Illinois in October and a friend of mine bought it immediately. It got posted on Facebook and after a while I had seven orders for these sets! WOW! So I've been working on those fairly steadily. People wanted them to give as Christmas presents so I had a deadline to meet. I got them all finished and have all but one set delivered as of this posting.

In addition to the beverage sets, I've been experimenting with other designs and essentially “doodling” with some scrap and have come up with a bottle opener with a twisted handle that I quite like. I've made some “S” hooks and a prototype twisted double hook which looks pretty rough but is still functional.

Outside of the forge itself, I've been brainstorming with my Jessie regarding branding, packaging and forge swag. The ideas are flowing and I think some neat things will be coming out in the new year!All in all, the activities around the anvil recently have been very productive and rewarding. I'm looking forward to seeing what else emerges from that fire.

I wish for all of you the happiest of holidays!


Sincerely,
Chris

Filling in the blanks

Astute readers of this blog will notice there is a significant gap in time between my posts last year and my post this year. I would like to shed some light on that period of absenteeism. The first sentence in my post from Thursday, August 20, 2015 says “It has been a while since I posted here and it’s time for that to change.” Well, it seems as though I may have spoken a bit hastily. I wrote that with the firm belief that I was going to focus more on smithing; building up my skills and possibly my inventory. Little did I know that in 8 days, my whole life would change.


When I’m not pounding out things on my anvil or pounding out work for my employer, I’m pounding on drums in a hard rock band called 50 Breaks. I’ve been a musician far longer than I’ve been a blacksmith and playing gigs is quite a regular thing for me. Meeting the person I wish to share my life with is considerably less common though. There I was, calmly sitting in the bar where we were playing a show, when Jessie introduced herself and with an off-handed and quite obscure quote referenced from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, our lives were welded together.

The early stages of any relationship will usually take precedence over one's hobbies and social life and we spent a good amount of time getting to know one another. I would still doodle in my shop here and there but not with any amount of progress. My time was not only occupied with learning everything I could about this wonderful new person, but also with the full length album the band had decided to record. We began working on the album and progress was made, however, as time elapsed and I was getting the need for some deliberate hammer time (and not the kind with baggy pants).


December 15, 2015 was a normal Tuesday right up until the chain I was installing on a Terex 5TC-55 Aerial Device slipped out of my grip, caught the middle finger on my left hand and pulled it sideways; hyper-extending and severely spraining that area of my hand. At the moment the injury happened I was wearing gloves and I was up on a scaffold. I pulled my hand back from the machine and just held onto it until I could gather enough courage to remove the glove and inspect the damage. Eventually I did just that. I was delighted that there was no blood and that I was able to move everything so nothing seemed broken even though it felt kind of weird. Yet slowly I came to realize that not only did my hand feel weird, my middle finger wouldn’t stand up straight and, in fact, sort of lolled off towards my ring finger if I didn’t deliberately spread out my fingers. I could move everything so I didn’t think there were any breaks but something was obviously very wrong. I notified my supervisor and headed off the the clinic where after some poking, prodding, pulling and x-raying, the doctor explained what she believed had happened.

I was then splinted, bandaged and sent on my way with directions to keep my hand immobilized for the next week after which i could begin a prescribed physical therapy routine to build up strength in that hand. It was four or five weeks before I could make a closed, tight fist and quite a bit longer before I could hold it that way without pain. Eventually I was able to get back behind the drumkit to help record the album and behind my anvil to enjoy the creation but the effects of that injury will likely be with me for the rest of my days.


I have had other things that took priority over the forge during the early and middle part of 2016 including various family duties, some health issues that have developed for Jessie but also a cohabitation with Jessie and her cat Jezebel who I’ve come to adore even though allergies make this a challenge sometimes. Really though, if you like animals at all, how could you not adore this cuteness!

Recently, and with encouragement from Jessie, I started to refocus on what I want to do with Fox River Forge and have begun working in that direction. This includes a rearrangement and organization of the shop, acquisition of some much needed tooling, setting up a proper PayPal account and putting together a spreadsheet to track orders, inventory and all that other glorious data. Being the tech oriented woman she is, she bought the Fox River Forge URL to make it easier and more professional to get people to this blog and included a dedicated email address which is chris@foxriverforge.com.

I want to thank everyone who has traded a moment of their life with mine in reading this blog. I also want to try to post a minimum of once a month here (hopefully much more) in order to share what's going on. I look forward to seeing what this new determination will deliver in return. So until next time, may your fires burn clean and your hammers strike true.

Two months in a row?

What's this? It's not going to be months before a new post is put up? WTF? (What The Forge;)
In all seriousness, I am looking to keep this more current as I refocus my efforts at the forge.

Anyway!

A couple days ago I turned 42 and my wonderful girlfriend, who is far more tech-savvy that I am, set me up with my own custom URL for the forge which includes an email address so now in addition to going to www.foxriverforge.com,  you can email me at chris@foxriverforge.com with any questions, orders, sarcasm or whatever you wish.

I have also set up a PayPal account to make purchasing some of my stuff and little easier for anyone out of the immediate area. I am looking into ways to show what I have available for purchase and as soon as that is worked out in will be sure to post about it. I know Etsy is popular for this sort of thing but I'm not sure it's right for me. It is in the list of options I'll be researching.