[TheForge] RR Anvil - Carrie Haag

[Vincent Nakovics]

Carrie,
    I preferred wood for my anvil stand. Just a piece of 6 x6 with a nice wide base on it. The designs on Anvilfire work well. The advantage of the wood is that it is easier to change as you change your preferences and they will change over the next few years. 
   Forge welding rebar can at times be frustrating, use new or old steel or iron. There is a lot of rebar that is not rated for welding and it makes it difficult to weld in the forge. Of course it can be done. 
   Frosty and the others are quite correct that the horn is not needed to the majority of your work. It is recent in history to an anvil, but has become the most underutilized part of the anvil for most blacksmiths. The really Good Guys and Master Smiths that I have had the pleasure to talk with all say the same, don't need it but lots of stuff can be made easier if you use the entire anvil, horn, step, heel, etc. Of course with a RR anvil you don't have one. No problem. Use bicks, swages and other shapes for forming. 
   There's my 1/2 cent. 
 Oh tongs, as a smart guy once said; if you can hold it you can't forge it. There are lots of simple quick ways to make tongs that work well and you won't spend a lot of time messing with them. Look on line and you will see. 
Have Fun and be sure to join a local Blacksmith group. I am sure there is one near you. They will be able to put you in contact with one or two Smiths near you and I am sure you find all kinds of questions to answered. You will learn a lot of stuff from the group, safety, techniques, tooling, etc. 

Vince Nakovics
 
Blacksmithing; “Making exquisitely simple items extraordinary and tremendously complex items understatedly simple”.

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