Last summer, I managed to pick up a 25lb railroad anvil and hammer at a garage sale for just a few bucks. This year, I've upgraded a bit. I picked up a 55lb anvil from Harbor Freight (yes, cheap cast steel, so maybe it's not really an upgrade...) for $39.99, and I found a true blacksmith fuller hammer for just $4. FOUR dollars! I had planned on stopping by a welding shop and picking up a hammer for $20, but now I don't have to.



With my new hammer and anvil, I figured up my forge with some charcoal I picked up from WalMart ($6/10lb bag) and banged on some steel tool to see if I could make something clever.

I quickly ran into a problem, though. I have a set of tongs I found at another garage sale, but they're not really that useful to me. Instead of having a flat section with some reasonable surface area to grab anything, these tongs have two edges that press against each other, as though they were made to slice carrots or something:





As it turns out, these are not actually tongs. They're nippers, used for cutting and removing horseshoes. I'll have to make myself a pair of functional tongs here soon.

Anyhow, I beat on that metal as best I could to see if I could make a knife. It didn't quite work out, on account of me being impatient and seeing how brittle it would be prior to tempering.



First attempt: fail.

Also, hammering takes a lot of work. This is certainly going to build up some arm strength I didn't realize I lacked.

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I didn't make this, but I'm sure I'll forge a sword eventually.

This guy has a power hammer, which makes forging much faster. That'll be a handy tool once I actually start forging. Very exciting.

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Blacksmith Forging a Leaf Key Chain - video powered by Metacafe

I've been doing a lot of research on forging, and came across this nice instructional video on how to make a forged leaf for a key chain. It looks really nice - I'm excited to try to make my own.

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I picked this antique forge on craigslist for $100. The hand-crank (worth $100 by itself) works perfectly.

And after throwing in some firebricks to contain the heat, it looks like it works:






I'm a real blacksmith now!

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I've been hunting around on craigslist for an anvil to add to my collection of metal working tools, but the $150 to $400 for some large anvils has been causing me to hesitate - that's a ton of money.

I went browsing around at garage sales this morning and found a guy selling a bunch of old metal working tools, so I jokingly asked if he happened to have an anvil sitting around.

"Well actually... I have this old railroad tie that looks like it's been converted into one."



Six dollars later, I've got myself a nice little 19" 25lb anvil (and the hammer, too!), which is actually perfect for the kind of work that I do.

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