When my Grandfather passed in 2009 I received his anvil. Before that, it was his father's. Neither were blacksmiths by trade, but it was used to build his house in the 1940's. Back then, building things yourself was just what people did. After I took it in, the anvil sat unused for three years, as life happened and time passed. Then one day, I started looking into doing something 'real' with it.
While researching the anvil and basic blacksmithing, I ran across a forum where some blacksmiths were discussing their friends and their fallen. When the terms "dead anvil" and "silent anvil" popped up, I absorbed the information and I moved on.
Later I learned about an anvil's "song". Every anvil has a different song, and so does every blacksmith. You can tell between two when they work side by side by the sound they make.
A bit further on I was discussing this with an old-timer who gave me this opinion: A quiet anvil means a dead blacksmith. Putting the song back into a silent anvil is one of the finer things a younger blacksmith can attempt. "An old anvil and some new song can wake up a ghost."
Long story short - after a lot of messing about and wasting metal, after burning and cutting myself and everything else in sight, I had made my first little railroad spike knife on my family anvil. I wanted to hear the anvil's new song, but also I just wanted to know if I could do it. Turns out I could.
Now it's been almost a decade of practice and study, and I still use my old family anvil nearly every week. I make knives and tools, jewelry and hardware, repairs and alterations. And I love it.
I am now adding my own notes to this old anvil's song.,
And that's why our name is "Anvilsong Forge".
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