[TheForge] RE; Hoffi style / was Anvil stands

[Bob Ehrenberger]

Pete,

You have caught the general drift of the Hoffi style.  His hammer has an
almost square face and the pien is basically a cross pien but with a very
large radius, 1/2" or 3/4". He said that part of the reason for the short
fat handle was the fact that they don't have quality wood in Isrial.  Thin
handles like we usually see would break too fast. Kind of developed his
style around the materials at hand.

Hoffi stresses keeping a loose grip on the hammer and letting the hammer do
the work. I've noticed that if I do that it reduces the stress on my arm.

I haven't taken the Hoffi class but have watched him several times at BAM
events.  He really gets a lot done in a short amount of time.

I've used the Hoffi/Clark stand at Tom's school and it worked pretty good
but was a little tall for me.  It's not very easy to make adjustments, so
you better know what heigth and anvil you want before you build it. But that
is true of most anvil stands and once you got your personal stand tuned in
I'm sure you would like it.

Bob Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo

Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 23:50:58 -0700
From: Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer <artgawk@thegrid.net>
To: theforge@mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: Anvil stands
Reply-To: theforge@mailman.qth.net

Hi Mike;
I saw this second hand and briefly at that so I'm no expert...but
Uri Hoffi ( hope I'm not mispelling that name) has apparently developed
a distinctive style of smithing that involves using a  short, blocky,
diagonal pien, hammer head with an short stocky handle. They stand close
to the tail of the anvil and face the horn, swinging the hammer almost
parallel to the length of the anvil. At least this is what i gathered
from Tom Clark's demo and from some other folks I've seen. The
allegation seems to be one of minimum bodily stress and maximum control.
The face of the hammer is rectangular with the long way parallel to the
handle. They tilt the hammer to use the corners and radiused edges a
lot. They choke way up on the handle.
Now would somebody be so kind as to correct where I'm wrong and fill in
the rest?.........Pete