Hi I don’t normally comment on stuff,but I feel it would be unfair of me if I didn’t comment,
firstly anvils are never put onconcrete, they are either on a metal frame or large block of wood,its to take the shock. I am a blacksmith, retired.
Ok next are you right handed or lefthanded, depending on which, depends on your anvil position, by theway the hammer is laying I say your right handed, turn the anvil sothe bick, the pointy end is facing the forge if you leave it there.The bick is heavily used.
Also pretend you got an anvil, and aforge, now stand and think, you want to do the least movement fromthe forge to the anvil, basically you only really want to do onequarter turn, most a half turn. Getting the job on to the anvil whilethe heat is still hot is important.
Water, most forges have a water troughat one end, its how we control the heat in the job, they large,normal dark, and rusty, great place to hide beer as an apprentice.
The chimney hood wouldn’t have beensupported at the front, that gets in the way of moving large bits ofsteel around. Also it is to low, we want to be able to see the workin the fire so we can judge it.
Tools that got used all the time, likeyour favourite hammer and tongs, were normal hung on a bar that wasright on the forge. It meant you could pick up what you neededstraight away, the water trough meant you could cool hot tongs.
Right next is light, actually mostblacksmith shops are quite dimly lit, the reason for this was so wecould see the colours of the steel in the forge, white hot steelready for fire welding also burns extremely quickly and can mess upyour job, so we keep the place fairly dark so we can see the colours.
Grime was a big factor, metal scalewould get everywhere, just think of your skin peeling after beingsunburnt, metal does the same. But saying that, the top of the anvilwas always kept clean, swept after every heat, what I mean is youheat your work up, bash it, tap it, then put back in the fire, sweepthe anvil, you didn’t want the scale getting back on to your workand you certainly didnt want any marks on your anvil face. So allthis double tapping you see was a no no on a anvil face as it couldleave an unwanted mark.
You would have kindle on the forge,that’s for starting a new fire every morning, and a new pile ofcoke to one side to make sure the fire was always at it best quality.Coke burning out causes clinkers and they stick to your work. Whencold go hard as glass.
Most blacksmiths favourite hammers hadburnt handles at the end, basically the work would move and you needto hold it firm while you repositioned the tongs, hammer handle wasthe closest thing. Until your boss caught you and whacked you withit.
The anvil has two holes a square onecalled a hardy hole and round one called the pritchel hole.
One last thing, if your horse shoe isbright red then you would have no bright yellow flames on your fire,burning hot coke once lit doesn’t actually give off big yellowflames like you see in most of the pictures, thats a cold fire, butinstead blues, washed out reds, and depending on what your heatingwill also affect the colour of the flame.
Have a look at Japanese sword maker,you can see his flame only burns yellow when he pokes the fire, alsoyou see him cleaning of the scale, and his very little movement,
Hope some of this helps.
