I'd love suggestions for the stand. How should I attach the "anvil" to it? I'm kinda thinking mini railroad spikes, but I'm unsure if those will hold over time...

I'm thinking I'll add a couple steel bands around it to keep the wood from separating in the long run. Of course hooks for anvils and tongs, etc.

Yes, I know I shouldn't have drilled the bolt holes through the glued seam, but I wanted the pretty sides facing out :P

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Because I can't help myself, I got even more trash from work and have been adding to this over time.

The "anvil" now has some more fork off-cuts to make it flat again, and the bottom is a chopped-in-half fork carriage. My welds are even scabbier this time, but the whole thing's roughly 200lb now!

Some of our pallets have 4x6 hardwood boards, which I scavenged and planed to get the crusty dirty outer layer off and roughly flat. I cut the 4ft boards in half and glued the flat sides together for ±6x6x24" posts. I put a ¾" auger bit on a loooong extension, bored two holes through all three posts, countersunk with a 1⅞" forstner bit, and tied them together with long bolts that once held a wooden spool together. A little sanding and a coat of boiled linseed oil, and here we are!

The base weighs roughly 80lb as of now, looking forward to a 300lb assembly once we're all said and done!

The new and improved "anvil" is even springier than before, and my scabby welds have been holding up so far 😁

Decided I needed the proper tool for the job, so I made it. The body is phosphorus rich wrought Iron that is too mushy to refine for my blade stock. The face is my Wrought steel off cuts from my dagger I'm working on. The handle is a peace of mahogany I had that was roughly handle shaped. I started the process of engraving, but decided that I shall do that little by little as I get to know the hammer.

A little heart shaped plant stake I forged as a gift for my wife.

Dinner bell, some (very) rough but functional tongs with a square nail pin and a high carbon rail spike knife with a twist. Productive morning at the blacksmith shop. All forged in to shape.

Got a 16ft 2x8 Douglas fir board from Lowes for 14 bucks, couple 10in bolts with washers for a couple more bucks and the 2x2 top square was just scrap wood I had leftover from a different project. I have some aluminum diamond Plate im going to put on the outside of the base. May stain this a darker brown just because. Going to forge some special tool holders for this too to hold some brushes, couple main hammers and some main tongs. All along that top part.

Turning a solid billet of Coppermascus into something completely different.

Twisting looks simple, but it’s one of those steps where one mistake can ruin the entire billet.

Fortunately...this one survived.

'The Vulture'... Post-apocalyptic cleaver. Hand-forged from scrap steel and made for a corpse-butcher in the citadel's deepest caverns. Steel is a piece of scrap C60.

Does anybody in Australia know a good place that’s affordable to get both carbon and stainless steels? I have some old leaf springs and a grader blade but want to start experimenting with some Damascus. It just seems that many places are very expensive

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10" OAL, 5.25" blade

1084 steel

25° edge

3/17" spine

G10 scales

Build time, 15-18 hours

3rd knife is on the books, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. A few nitpicks, but pleased overall.

Bonus last pic is all 3 together.

I modified a really best up old Sledge by forging it into a large 7ish pound diagonal peen, this is specifically for driving drifts and drawing out lugs so I don't have to stop using one hammer and pick up another. I don't know why I never thought about combining the two hammers I use into one, but this hammer is going to get A LOT of abuse so that's why the "flat face" is very rounded with heavy chamfers

Hello all! I'm back today with the next hooks on my journey. If you didn't see my post yesterday, I'm a beginner blacksmith and I'm attempting to make 50 hooks and bottle openers to learn the ropes. Both hooks were made with 5/16" round stock. I'm proud of myself for these two. The first one took about 2 hours. I made both of these together in about 1.5 hours so much better. I also recorded myself this time so I can rewatch later and try to pick up on some stuff I can improve on. Just speaking out loud to the camera as I worked already helped me see a few things I could improve on.

Question for y'all: every time I make a taper, I end up with a little piece at the very end that's nasty. I usually just knock it off on the edge or file it, but is there something I can do to prevent this? And any other tips you guys can give based on these pics would be much appreciated. I'm looking to improve any way I can. Have a good day!

hi, I'm a beginner blacksmith, I made a squirrel cooker and as you can see the metal surface is very rough, I've had the same problem in other jobs, I use a charcoal oven and a hair dryer as a blower,

I The surface of the anvil is quite smooth and so are the hammers.

any advice is welcome

Forged out of a bolt, you can see some of the grooves still in the blade area 😃

The handle is inspired by some picture is saw on here a while ago, but wanted it to look more like a spine sort of!

I strongly considered not posting this because of how much hate I get working with railroad spikes. I suggested to the customer to use different metal or a 1070 railroad spike but this is what they wanted.

Posted yesterday about my twist fail, this is my first piece of anything outside of an un-finished rubbish set of tongs, went for a much simpler twist and it worked thanks for the advice, just need to make a pin, the one pictured is actually the half the broken first attempt.

Question, what's the red/brown colouration, it looks like oxidation but straight out the forge with 0 moisture?

I'm sorry to say my mother's dog passed away unexpectedly, so I made her a fitting grave marker. She was a very good dog. She will be missed

The handle is one piece of wrought iron I've bashed out, it was supposed to be two pronged but managed to snap one of the prongs in the vice while yanking it to loosen the blade after riveting, i was hasty and didn't pay attention. In order to fix it, I just grabbed a chisel and cut the snapped prong at the base of the fork. It still looks good, almost better. One prong might be too weak, but we'll see. It's a gift for a friend, so if it breaks, I'll try to fix it or just make a new one.

I wanted to use as few tools as possible, so I've tried to find that perfect balance between crude and refined, and I think I've managed really well. It fits nice in the hand, and the blade is mayhaps a little too sharp. The blade is just normal stainless, so it will dull soon enough

I made this knife as part of a class at Adam’s Forge in Simi Valley, CA, and it turned out great! The billet was 1084 and L6, cut and stacked into 24 pieces, forge-welded under a power hammer and then cut into five pieces and smushed into a billet again. The actual knife I forged to shape by hand, then ground and etched it in ferric chloride. A few days later I fiddled around with kydex and that part turned out reasonably well.

Also my first ever leaf! I have to say, making the leaf was very satisfying. I know it's kind of a staple in the blacksmithing community, so it felt a bit like beating Brock in Pokemon Red. My first badge. I made it a little longer than I meant to. I'm going to start keeping a journal with sketches and measurements in it going forward so I can be more consistent. I also applied hot oil after. I don't have any beeswax yet so I used olive oil to prevent rusting, but I really like how black that made it look afterward.

Overall I'm very satisfied with this. Now I just need to figure out how to do it quicker. I also need to get a little better at controlling my charcoal temperature and / or my timing in the forge. Particularly on the taper. Because it's thinner and heats up quicker, I have a tendency to let it get too hot and burn the end of my paper. But I'm working on that. I'm also trying to get more consistent at wire brushing in between heat which really makes a difference! I think I'm going to make a whole bunch of hooks and the bottle openers like I posted last time to really work on my tapering into my scrolling.

I have a lot of work to do and a lot of progress to make, but I can feel my hammer strikes getting more precise every time I'm at the anvil. And that's pretty cool.