Anvils

As much as I like my big Swedish anvil, it's not a great bladesmithing tool. Following the recommendations of Donn Fogg, I contacted Chuck Robinson and bought an anvil specifically set up for bladesmithing. It's basically a big chuck of tool steel (5" square by ~24" long) in a base that allows height adjustment. Yup, I know what you're thinking - couldn't I just have cobbed something like that together? I could have but the time I would have spent was spent making knives which then paid for the anvil, so I am basically a happy camper. But....there was a problem. For hidden tang knives, I like to set the shoulders using a guillotine fuller and for most blades, I like to set a bend in the blade to compensate for the distorsion arising from hammering in the bevels. On my big anvil, there is a hardy hole to hold the fuller and a horn for the bending, so....I added a hardy hole to the bladesmithing anvil. It's simply a wrap-around strap with a box of angle-iron welded to one side and a set bolt to lock it in place. It is installed so that the top of the box is below the anvil surface. The horn was approximated by a piece of round-stock on a stem. Incidentally, the white splashing on the anvil isn't due to a bad paint job by Chuck - it's residual baking soda added the water I use when I'm using the wet-anvil technique to help control scale.