Had a week last fall where every single anvil strike felt off and I couldn't figure out why

I was working on a set of gate hinges for a customer in Akron, nothing complicated. But for five days straight, my hammer hits were landing flat, my steel was cooling too fast, and I messed up two tenon joints that I normally do in my sleep. I thought maybe my shoulder was acting up or my eyes were going. Turns out I had swapped my anvil stand for a shorter one two weeks earlier and never adjusted my stance. Took me a full week to notice. Has anyone else had a bad stretch that turned out to be something simple like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_morgan28d ago

Man, I used to think stuff like that was just excuses people made for having a bad day at the forge. I figured if you're paying attention, you'd catch a setup change right away. But last month I spent three days fighting with my hammer. My strikes felt clunky, my elbow started aching, and I was getting frustrated thinking my hammer was worn out. Turned out I'd grabbed my lighter cross-peen hammer by mistake when I was rushing in the morning. I didn't even notice until I weighed it against my regular one. That experience shut me right up about judging other people's struggles.

gonzalez.rowan28d ago

And once you realize it's something small like that, it's almost embarrassing how long it took to click. I had a similar thing with my bench vise being half a turn too loose and I spent two days blaming my chisels. It's wild how your body will adapt to a bad setup before your brain catches on to what's wrong.

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