Today’s Topic: The Blacksmith’s Anvil!

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blacksmith blog!  Today, I will be taking a step away from knives and talk about blacksmithing! I figured that since this is The Blacksmith Blog I should probably talk a little about blacksmithing.  Square one is generally a good place to start so let's discuss tools!  There are as many tools and tool variations as there are blacksmiths. Today, I am going to talk about the anvil.

The anvil a key component of any smithy.  It will be used in everything you make from knives to coat racks to S-hooks.  The anvil is the main and most used tool in the smithy and often the most expensive.  It is comprised of  many parts such as the face, the horn, the step, the hardie hole, and the pritchel hole.  The face of the anvil is the flat surface upon which you work most often.  The horn, I feel, is self explanatory.  For anyone who does not know what it is though, it is the cone of metal coming off the front of the anvil.  Its primary function is to put a curve in the piece you are working on.  The step (also called the drop & table) is the junction between the face and the horn. Depending on the anvil, the step can vary from half an inch to just over an inch in height.  I personally use the step as another edge of the anvil.  My anvil is old and worn, because of this the edges are not well defined and in most places chipped.  The step in the best spot for me personally to form harder angles in whatever it is I happen to be working on.   The holes of the anvil are the hardie and pritchel hole.  The hardie hole is used to hold tools, called hardies.  There is a tool for just about everything. There are cut-off hardies, bending hardies, fullering hardies, etc. The hardie hole is the multi tool of the anvil.  The pritchel hole has a less wide variety of uses.  Its main use is for punching steel so you're not damaging your anvil face.  It can also be used for holding certain tools such as special made hold downs.  

When first starting, most people get scared off by the ridiculous price of an anvil. Luckily, there is a solution to this problem. All you need it an anvil shaped object, or ASO to most smiths. An ASO can be any hard piece of metal with a relatively flat surface. This could be a sledge hammer head or a chunk or rail road. Maybe you have a big hunk of flat stock laying around? Well bolt it to a piece of wood or something of the likes and you have an ASO. Albeit not a good one, but it will function until you can get a replacement. Maybe you have a large piece of gold just collecting dust? Well unfortunately gold is to soft for an ASO but I am sure you can think of some way to use it to procure an ASO.

All in all the anvil is a very important part of any smithy and nothing could get done without it. I really hope everyone enjoyed this blog today and you come back next time. As always please leave your comments and questions in the comments section and I will answer as soon as possible. Everyone be sure to listen to the ring of your local blacksmiths anvil as they work long into the night!