I love blacksmithing. The ability to take a rusty, lifeless piece of steel and transform it into anything you like still puts a smile on my face. Without an anvil, none of this is possible. Like many tools in my shop, the anvil allows me to get work done that you simply can't get done with any other tool. My anvil was a long time coming for me. When I first started in blacksmithing, I went through several anvil type objects before I landed on the anvil you see in this video. I'm happy to have it and would be hard pressed to ever part with it.
In this video I give you a brief history of my anvil, note the parts of an anvil, show some of the tools used in blacksmithing and interject a small blacksmithing project throughout. The project is a bottle opener. I started with an old rusty railroad spike, hot cut and punched, gave it a full twist and slapped on a Johnson's Paste Wax finish. As to the two bottle openers you see at the end of the video, the one on the left of the anvil was my first attempt at making a bottle opener years ago. The one on the right, is the one shown in the video and only three quarters of the way finished. It was getting late while filming and I had to shut things down to keep peace in the neighborhood.
I hope you enjoy the video. Thanks for watching!