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Unpopular opinion: hammer control matters more than your anvil's brand, and my 100th bottle opener proved it
I used to think I needed a $2,000 anvil to do real work, but after forging my 100th bottle opener on a beat up 70 pound chunk of rail steel I found at a scrapyard in Toledo, I finally admitted I was wrong. The first 40 or so looked like a raccoon chewed them out, mostly because I was swinging my hammer like I was chopping wood instead of letting the steel move. Somewhere around number 60 I quit blaming my tools and started watching my hammer face land flat, and the differences showed up fast. My anvil cost me $40 and my hammer cost $25, and I would put my last batch up against anything made on fancy gear. Anyone else here think we spend too much time shopping for anvils and not enough time practicing hammer strikes?
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charlesanderson15h ago
Forged a set of tongs last winter that taught me the same lesson the hard way. I kept fighting the steel, whacking it like it owed me money, and the jaws came out twisted and uneven. My buddy watched me for ten minutes, then told me to slow my swing down and just let the hammer do the work. Once I stopped muscling it, the metal moved where I wanted and the tongs actually lined up. Funny how we blame the anvil when the real problem is our own impatience at the forge.
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