Spent 3 hours trying to forge a simple scroll today before realizing my anvil was moving

I been working out of my garage for about 2 years now and today just killed me. I was trying to make a simple decorative scroll for a gate I'm building, same thing I've done a hundred times. But every hit felt off, the metal kept kinking instead of bending clean. I kept adjusting my hammer angle, changed my heat, even switched to a different cross peen. After like 3 hours of frustration I finally noticed the whole anvil was shifting about a quarter inch every time I struck. My stand bolts had worked loose over the winter. Felt like a total idiot. Has anyone else wasted a ton of time troubleshooting the wrong thing?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa39425d ago

Three hours though? I mean yeah that sucks but you caught it and its fixed now. I've had a loose vise drive me crazy for an afternoon and honestly I just laughed it off after I found the problem. If anything it's a good reminder to check your setup before you start swinging, not a tragedy. An hour of troubleshooting I get, but 3 hours before checking the anvil itself feels like you were kind of asking for it.

troy_wilson825d ago

My buddy Dave did something similar a few years back. He spent a whole afternoon fighting with his forge weld, couldn't figure out why it kept failing. Checked his flux, his hammer, his technique everything. Finally gave up and went to clean his anvil face and realized he had a huge grease spot right where he was working. Took him maybe 2 seconds to wire brush it off after that and his next weld stuck perfect. He felt like a total idiot but honestly we still give him crap about it at the shop. Sometimes you just get tunnel vision and overlook the obvious stuff man.