Pretty much every weekend since the New Year started I have
been cleaning and reorganizing the garage to prep for setting up a home Forge
so I can start doing Blacksmithing at home. This past weekend I decided I was
going to trim down a cross section of a tree I picked up on the side of the
road near my work so I could mount my anvil on it. I *thought* this was going
to be a fairly quick task… I seriously didn’t think it would take 12 hours to
finish it.
That is a 1” piece
of pipe. There was no indication that a pipe was inside the tree from the top,
bottom, or sides but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t in there. Once I finally got
that piece off I replaced the saw blade and finished squaring off the sides and
called it a night.
Myafternoon
entire weekend project was finally done! I had my anvil mounted square and
level to my log and the log has very little movement to it and it is just a
hair over the perfect height, not *perfect* but close enough for me. I’m sure
the chains will loosen up some with use and the anvil will start to shift
around, but when that happens I have already devised a way to add adjustable
tension sections to the chain so I can tighten it back down.
First of all here
is the section of tree, it is 36” across and is Oak or some other hard wood;
this thing is massive.
I had planned on
mounting the anvil on one edge then using the other edge to mount a vise on and
maybe a striker plate for upsetting longer pieces of iron but when I went to
clean up the sides I notice some sections of rot so I decided to go ahead and
trim it down to fit just the anvil and a striker plate. So I started cutting
about 6” to 8” off the outside edge all the way around. On my third section I
started having trouble with the chainsaw and just couldn’t cut through one
area, I had a fight on my hands that I was determined to win. After about 2
hours of cutting, cussing, sharpening the blade, and trying to split it with an
ax and a sledge hammer, I finally got it to where it was moving and about to
come free so I beat it off with a 2lbs sledge hammer. And much to my surprise I
found this inside…
That is a 1” piece
of pipe. There was no indication that a pipe was inside the tree from the top,
bottom, or sides but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t in there. Once I finally got
that piece off I replaced the saw blade and finished squaring off the sides and
called it a night.
The next morning I
was back at it. I cut off the other corners to make the log an octagon instead
of a square then I cut 2 ½” off one end to make it just about the right height.
Next I tried to make the ends square and level… with a chainsaw… which was a
bad idea. I ended up borrowing a belt sander and an electric planner from my
dad and spent the next 4 hours getting the log ends as flat and square as I
could.
Finally (FINALLY!) it was time to mount the anvil. To do this I used
some heavy chain my wife found some place and brought home to me and some carriage
bolts with lock washers and flat washer. I measured out the sections of chain
and cut them to length with an angle grinder, drilled my guide holes, and
chained down one end of the anvil and then the other.
My
As I sat in my chair looking at my newly mounted anvil,
sipping a beer, I was proud of the work I had done; it had taken a lot longer
than I planned but I know that by taking the time to do it right and getting
the anvil face level on all axis’s will save me a lot of time, frustration, and
reworking in the future. I am excited with prospects of getting to do
Blacksmithing at home, the only thing I need to do now is build a gas forge and
I will be ready. That *should* be my next post and I will *try* to post info as
I go as well as take pictures of what I am actually doing to add to the blog.
Even if no one other than me is reading this post that is fine by me, I enjoy
recording the experiences I am having working on these projects and look
forward to reading over them in the future.
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