What is an anvil chopper you might ask? I'm glad you did.
Well the Anvil Chopper, from now on can be referred to as AC, started it's concept last September. While at the SOFA blacksmith conference, a friend of mine gave me a 1940 vintage Maytag 72D, 2 cylinder, 2 cycle motor. It didn't run and had been in his shop taking up space too long so he brought it along with a trailer of other ......things, to sell at what is considered to be the country's, nay World's, biggest and bestest blacksmith conference and tailgate sales event there is. So there we are on this Wednesday afternoon of an event that didn't officially start until Friday afternoon with this antique motor that didn't run. Well that's like crack of cocaine to a bunch of blacksmiths so by lunch Thursday, four of us had that puppy running better than it had, I'm sure, in decades. Well we ran that thing off and on for four days strait and in the course of wanting more draw on the motor, settled on using a furnace blower that another fellow had for sale. I didn't want to be out of style so rather than pay cash for it, I traded a fist full of files I had for sale. Barter done and all happy, the blower was perfect for drawing power. The more you push, the harder it pushes and allowed us to enjoy the motor under load. Pop, pop, pop.
So now it's January and I mentioned the cold, and the AC has begun. The grandson will be the eventual rider of this but I get to be the test dummy. If it can haul me, it can haul him sort of thing. The power plant is the Maytag and the axle and bearings are from the blower. There is a whole nuther story about the blower, but later on that. The rear wheels are from some doner bicycles as well as the front end. the frame is all pieced together from stuff to give the illusion of an anvil. Come on, you didn't really think I was going to use a real anvil, did you? Everything else is being made as thought of. These are the things that idle hands do when not boxed in. Enjoy.
Gobbler
