Well, I've been working on getting a second shop set up to take to historical reenactments and the like, something more portable than the 200 lb railroad tie anvil stand, and vise stand. The ultimate goal making it so I don't need to take up half my truck with ramps and a dolly. I also built them so they could store my tools, both for transport and over night, freeing up the space my huge tool box used to occupy as well.

I finally finished my anvil stand the other day, and I'm a good ways into my vise stand, so I figured I'd share! They're built like an I beam in cross section, with doors on both sides which I can tuck my tools into and lock. I made basically everything but the carriage bolts, and the lock mechanisms.

Nice!
Do you take the short cuts to get to the show?

Very, very nice work!

Quote from: oldgoaly on June 15, 2016, 12:12:01 PM
Nice!
Do you take the short cuts to get to the show?

Haha, in all seriousness, I'm going to get a coyote tail to hang out the side of the anvil. :P

Pretty cool! I like the storage but i would wind up putting so much in the storage that I would need a forklift to load it!

I forget what area you live in. Are yoou in the Oklahoma/North Texas area by any chance?

Bill D.

I've blacksmithed outside a lot at shows, and am concerned about the stability, tippiness of the anvil stand  when on dirt?    For a vise stand I use a 55 gallon barrel, left half the top in the barrel, bolted a shaped 2x6 to it and the vise to that.  When the barrel is over half full of water, it does not move, also is my water tank.  Add a spigot near the bottom and one can drain it easily, to load it.   What do you have for a forge?   Seen guys add small cable lifts to their trucks to get stuff in and out. 

Haha, in all seriousness, I'm going to get a coyote tail to hang out the side of the anvil. :P



Hahaha I was thinking the same thing, doubt many kids would get it but the old folks will get a good chuckle!

Quote from: lazyassforge on June 15, 2016, 02:53:16 PM
Pretty cool! I like the storage but i would wind up putting so much in the storage that I would need a forklift to load it!

I forget what area you live in. Are yoou in the Oklahoma/North Texas area by any chance?

Bill D.

Haha, well, the stand alone is still abour 100 lbs, I used some needlessly thick angle iron to reinforce it. I wish I had used the bed frame steel instead, but it's still portable enough. I only need to slip in 6 hammers and 3 hardies. Most of my hammers are 2.5 lbs, so it's about 120lbs loaded up.

Quote from: john k on June 15, 2016, 06:40:33 PM
I've blacksmithed outside a lot at shows, and am concerned about the stability, tippiness of the anvil stand  when on dirt?    For a vise stand I use a 55 gallon barrel, left half the top in the barrel, bolted a shaped 2x6 to it and the vise to that.  When the barrel is over half full of water, it does not move, also is my water tank.  Add a spigot near the bottom and one can drain it easily, to load it.   What do you have for a forge?   Seen guys add small cable lifts to their trucks to get stuff in and out.

I'm more worried about the vise stand being tippy than the anvil stand, though that might be somewhat misplaced... It's about the same footprint as my less mobile stand, and I never had a problem with stability with that.... Though, my old stand weighed twice as much, and so did my former 'portable' 200lb anvil.... My permanent stand is 4 RR ties bolted together, so it's 12x16 footprint. My new stand is 11x14. But, again, fully half the mass, as my little Kohlswa anvil there is only a 100lber.

I'll have to play that by ear, if it's tippy, my ad-hoc solution is to string a few guy wires, drive in some 14' tent stakes and tie it down, should keep it from tipping. And if it is a persistent problem, I'll add some detachable wings to make it more stable.

For my forge, I've got a luttle rivet forge I used last year. It works well, but I spend a 90% of my time with it doing fire management. I picked up a new small Buffalo forge I'm planning to replace it with, but it's a pump-style rather than rotary, I intend to modify it a little bit to make it foot operated. I haven't actually used it just yet, but my rendezvous I'm taking my shop to is mid July, so I sti have a little time...

Quote from: oldgoaly on June 15, 2016, 06:49:03 PM


Haha, in all seriousness, I'm going to get a coyote tail to hang out the side of the anvil. :P



Hahaha I was thinking the same thing, doubt many kids would get it but the old folks will get a good chuckle!

Coyote tail?? I know ime young, so what's the joke behind it???

An I love the anvil stand as well, nice storage to.

Still gonna be heavy to move. Tools are no fun when it's time to move em. At the same time lightly built cheap steel tools they make today tend to break. To bad you can't have lightweight but good quality.

You never saw The Roadrunner and Wylie Coyote? Wyey bought all his traps from ACME. He dropped thousands of anvils trying to smash the Roadrunner.

MBeep Beep!

Man, that was a classic CLASSIC show. <sigh> Too much "inappropriate violence" for today's audiences though.   

One of the local blacksmiths here has a neat set up for his traveling equipment.  He built an all steel sawhorse.  3 legged standard size sawhorse.  On the end with two legs he mounted the vise. On the opposite, he placed his anvil, right over the leg with is a capped eight inch pipe, remove the anvil and I doubt the stand weighs 110lbs.  Glad you are not using the portable 200lb. anvil now, they get heavier by the end of the day. 

Quote from: john k on June 17, 2016, 12:14:16 AM
One of the local blacksmiths here has a neat set up for his traveling equipment.  He built an all steel sawhorse.  3 legged standard size sawhorse.  On the end with two legs he mounted the vise. On the opposite, he placed his anvil, right over the leg with is a capped eight inch pipe, remove the anvil and I doubt the stand weighs 110lbs.  Glad you are not using the portable 200lb. anvil now, they get heavier by the end of the day.

Haha, me too. It was something I could actually pick up and carry though, unlike my 250lb anvil. :P

That sounds like a pretty handy setup, but I'm also taking into account a bit of showmanship with my design. The wood with iron accents will fit in better in my settings. Plus they will stand out more as an aesthetic work than a purely utilitarian setup. (Not to say tye tripod couldn't be made to be decorative, but that would probably mean making it heacier :P Plus, no storage options, again, unless you make it heavier.)  The three island setup also mirrors my home shop better, and lets me adjust for terrain etc. But thanks for the idea! If I ever break into farrier work, or some such, I'll have to keep that one in mind.

This weekend I've got to quick slap together a micro-shop that I can toss in my trunk to make jewelry at a Rendezvous next weekend... Just gonna bolt a 2x10 to the top of a landscape timber, with my tiny 1lb anvil and little jewlers vise so I can at least do copper work while my big shop is under construction. Will give me something to do over the weekend.