Bickerns, T-Stakes, and Stake Anvils

One of the oldest kind of anvils is the Stake or Bickern.  A T shaped anvil that fits into a hole in the bench or stump is much more economical to make than one with a massive iron base.  Wrought Iron and steel were extremely expense prior to the 19th century's innovations.  Medieval woodcuts of Blacksmith shops often showed a stake anvil along with a hornless main anvil.

Stake anvils are very useful in a traditional shop.  They are used to bend small coils, fit inside a hollow object, or finish small forgings.  They ranged in size from tiny ones used by Jewelers to 20lb. stakes used by smiths to 200lb Bickerns used as an anvil in the shop.

My small stake anvil is forged of wrought iron with a steel face.  It has the classic shape with one round horn and one square horn.  It is an old one, and has some wear from use.  It had been -34F the night before I took this picture.  It was still well below freezing in the shop, and the stake anvil is very frosty!

My large stake anvil is from the pre-modern era.  The fluted column, shield shaped boss, and combination of round and square horns may place this anvil in the 18th century or earlier.  It is wide, long, and tall and weighs around 180lbs.

It is all wrought iron with no steel face.  This style of anvil would have been used in England to supplement the shop anvil.  Pre-1800 English anvils were fairly solid and rectangular with small horns and a short heel.  They were excellent for general forging but sometimes you needs a horn or skinny heel to forge inside a bucket, set rivets, or work on tines of a fork.  The Bickern, T-Stake, or Stake Anvil was needed for those jobs.

Stake anvils are still used in the Blacksmith Shop.  At the SOFA Quad-State 2013 Conference a team of smiths used a steam hammer to make the one pictured below!

They are still a sought out and useful tool for Blacksmithing and sculptural form.  As I heard one old smith say they are, "as useful as pockets in a pair of pants!"

Boy's Axe - Reviving an Old Axe.

After the Ice Storm of 2013 we have a lot of branches and wood to clear.

It will be a long project.  As part of that I dug through my old tool and junk collection.  I found this neat little Boy's Axe.  It is a felling axe like a full size axe head, but is about 3/4 size, thin, and about 2.25lbs.

The handle is from a full size one that had broken.  It is bigger than a hatchet, smaller than a Hudson Bay axe, and with more cutting power!  It is a good companion for the crosscut saw and larger axes.

Old Blacksmithing hammers: tools found at Quad State!

I like old tools.  The tailgate tools sales at the yearly Blacksmithing SOFA Quad-State Conference in Troy, Ohio are always interesting.  I picked up what looks like a flatter or top tool, hand hammer, and sledge hammer head.

 They are all made simply from wrought iron bar with a punched eye. I don't know why the flatter on the left had a rectangular eye.  The center one is the sledge hammer head.  It does not appear to have steeled faces.  It also may have been upset or mushroomed just by use.  The swelling or hourglass shape on the right is from both working ends being upset for more mass.  That one appears to have the remains of a steeled face.

If you have any clues to how their origin or construction please let me know!

Atkins 55 two man Crosscut Saw restoration

Why would anyone want to use an old two man crosscut saw when chainsaws work so well?  Why not?  When set up and sharp they cut well, are good exercise, and don't make annoying noise.  They don't use gasoline, don't smell bad, and are a good tool to use to teach teenagers about wood cutting safety.  And as Blacksmiths because we have or can make the tools to sharpen and maintain a saw.

As a Blacksmith I have bought old tools at auctions, and sometimes end up with more tools than I want.  I have some old crosscut saws that I have been cleaning up to use around the yard to cut up unwanted Box Elder trees that are blocking the view of the water.

When I started looking through my tool stash I thought I'd find two or three saws.  Turns out I have around 9!  Don't remember buying them all, so I must have gotten most of them as things thrown in when buying old stuff at farm auctions.

One that I have cleaned up is a Atkins 55, Silver Steel, Segment Ground, made in Indianapolis Indiana.

It is a Perforated Lance Tooth pattern.  That means it has four cutting teeth for each raker.  The raker end looks like a M and cleans out the cut chips.  This pattern tended to be used more for softwood than hardwood, but can be used for anything.  This area has a lot of farmland between Lake Ontario and the Adirondacks.  Farmers and loggers cut hardwood for firewood, timber for Railroad Ties, softwood pulpwood for the paper mills, and timber for building on their farms.

I am not an expert at all, but I have cleaned it up and used it to cut some Box Elder.  It needs more sharpening and the Rakers need swaging to better peel chips.  But it works!  That is a 6 inch branch.  It is a lot slower than a chainsaw.  But it is also a lot faster than an ax!