[TheForge] anvil pointing

[John Switzer]

Personally I have always had the horn point to the right and I too am right 
handed.  Mostly this is because I was never told anything different and now 
its what I'm used to.  The biggest advantage that I have found is that 
hardy tools are way off to my left as I work.  I use lots of small jigs in 
the hardy hole and usually go to those jigs for bending hooks and such 
every heat.  It's way to dangerous to leave something in the hardy hole if 
it's under your hammer hand but I am no where near the hardy tools when 
they are on the opposite side and I don't have to take them in & out all of 
the time.

I was in the shop at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School (Francis old shop) 
this summer, 5 of the 6 anvils (including Francis's) pointed to the left 
and only one pointed to the right.  In the end it is just a matter of what 
each smith prefers.

John



>I can recall playing around with which way the horn worked best, left or 
>right, with my first anvil.
>When I got to Samuel Yellin's shop some years later, I was pointing the 
>horn to the right....I'm right handed so perhaps that was why.
>Every anvil in the shop was pointed to the left.   I turned the one I was 
>to use to the right....force of habit.  The shop forman, the son of a 
>blacksmith but a machinist by training, asked "why in the #%$@!" I was 
>doing that.....
>
>Maybe a year later, a very old man came to visit the shop.  He had worked 
>for Yellin in the 1920's.  He toured the shop and then paused. He noted 
>one anvil was pointing to the right.  "At least one anvil is set correct" 
>says he.