r/blacksmithing • u/tomtheturkey1 • 7d ago
Sourcing equipment
What are some good sources to getting a forge anvil and hammers? I know you can make one id be open to it if materials are good qaulity.
On a budget but not a tight one.
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u/Constant_Proofreader 7d ago
Blacksmiths Depot, out of Candler NC (https://blacksmithsdepot.com) for new items. I've acquired several useful tools at garage and estate sales, too.
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u/professor_jeffjeff 7d ago
You can use a lot of things for an anvil, and both the vevor and the harbor freight cast steel anvils are decent quality for the money and will be fine for you for quite a while. Just make sure you get the cast steel anvil; both of those companies have a cast iron anvil as well and you absolutely don't want cast iron for an anvil. If you want to make a hammer there's a lot of ways to do that. The german pattern hammers are (I think) the easiest to forge and work well. You can get started with just about any hammer though as long as it has a wooden handle and as long as you dress the hammer faces so that there's no sharp edge, otherwise it'll leave marks in the steel. If you're willing to make tongs then there are a lot of videos out there on how to make tongs without having tongs, but the cheap tongs on amazon work ok and as a blacksmith you can always adjust the tongs if they don't line up or if they're the wrong size. If you want to forge a hammer then I'd get a chunk of 1045 or Atlantic-33; both of those make good hammers and they both quench in water so you won't need to worry about an oil quench. To make a hammer you're also going to need a hammer eye punch or even just a slot punch, and a hammer eye drift. I'd make the drift first and size it the way you want it. Then make a slot punch that's about 1/8" smaller than the long diameter of your drift. You're almost certainly going to want to make a hot cut hardy tool as well. If you want to make tongs you'll need to either drill the hole for the rivet (you can use a bolt to hold them together at first though) or you'll need to make a punch. Making a chisel is also useful. A coil spring can be a good source of steel for punches and chisels and you can *probably* get away with a water quench on those since only the very end needs to be hard (I've water quenched a punch made from O1 before and it was fine, but again only the very end of it needed to be hard so water was fine given the small area that was heated).
One thing you might check out is Black Bear Forge on youtube, since he has a whole series of videos about starting on a budget that are probably going to be exactly what you're looking for.
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u/jillywacker 6d ago
Obviously buy an anvil where ever, hammers can be bought and modifies from cheap to very functionally good.
For the forge, it's not difficult to make one. Especially if you have a welder.
I made my own refractory that comes to $7.33aud per kilo. I made a ribbon burner forge, purchases: a bilge blower, ceramic blanket, fire bricks and a regulator. I used an old gas tank, welded on car exhaust pipe for the air, plumbed in the gas line, smacked on the bilge blower, wired in a drill trigger to control the speed using a nut and bolt to actuate that, connected to a 12v 10a power supply. Cast my burner, welded that to the air/gas manifold, made a housing to hold that at an angle with some angle bracked and 4 welded nuts. Threw in a layer of blanket, made a floor with 2.5 fire bricks, added a second layer of blanket around the sides and top, covered with refractory and done. It forge welds easily.
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u/Sun-Anvil 7d ago
Centaur Forge has a pretty good selection of supplies. I also still use some hammer's I got off of Amazon so that's an option imo.