Dont think about as I was only 10 !Ī mild steel angle will ring terribly but still effective. His name was, 'Robbo' He had a beautiful daughter though he was as ugly as sin. He had loads of corks in a box and I never did find out what they were for.Īsk him what he was making and he would say, 'E I am making a windjammer for a Ducks Axrce' Nuff said, we did not ask again but just watched. Yes, those old Smithys were very adaptable, I would heat his water for tea but only gently as he did not want ash in it. The anvils were also mounted at his 'knuckle height' and canted slightly to his right so that the flakes would vibrate off the anvil to his hammer strikes. He showed me that his anvils were mounted in iron stands but rested on strips of leather as the iron was 'too hard for me now i'm older' The smithy had no electrics and everything was done by the light of the forge and the heat in the metal.the blacksmith was old but a more physical and energetic man I have yet to meet. I like the ones made from a piece of railway line, keeping my eye out for a bitĪs a youngster still a school my Saturday job was with the local village blacksmith (mid 1960's).it was, in many ways, and education in itself which I did not realise until many years later.I was only interested in the few shillings each week towards teh camera I badly wanted to buy.but I digress. An iron stand will make the hammer 'bounce,' whereas a log or stump is 'dead'.

I only ask as every blacksmith's anvil I have ever seen have always been mounted on what is best described as a tree stump and I'm sure there is a good reason for it. Best mounted on a big log rather than the bench.Ĭan you explain why this is the case.

Steel sand filled anvil stand