The Creation of a Turret Clock

Bored at work...

  I am very close to buying a new anvil.  I am currently looking at the Peddinghaus 220# anvil.  It is very pricey but Peddinghaus has an unmatched reputation for anvils.  I can justify the cost in the sense that I am planning on doing blacksmithing for the rest of my life and a good anvil will last longer than me.  I learned a painful lesson in woodworking.  You get what you pay for.  If you buy cheap tools, you will always be struggling with them.  While its very true that a good blacksmith can work with less than quality tools, why struggle with them if you don't have to?

  Why this is important is that recently I have been remaking a lot of my tools.  I've been focusing mainly on punches, chisels and drifts.  However, I need to make some anvil tools such as hardies(used for cutting thicker stock), fullers(stretching metal in one direction), bending forks(gives precise control where a bend occurs), etc...  All of these tools fit in a square hole on the anvil called the hardie hole.

  My current Russian anvil has a hardie hole of 1 1/4".  This is not a standard size.  Most anvils sold in the US have a hardie hole of either 1" or 7/8" for smaller anvils.  I need/want to make the anvil tools but they are fairly time and labor intensive.  I was sitting here thinking if I am going to get the anvil soon (I'm hoping to pick it up at a convention in October) then it doesn't make sense to make a bunch of tools that fit the wrong size hole.

  Oh well, just thinking out loud.