Hi Matthew:
Oops- I mis spoke- I meant to say the strip will be concave up as you
hammer on it!  Duh.  I've been up since 4 am working on my talks because I
leave for Beijing at the crack'o'dawn and I'm no where near ready.  These
emails are a nice break from everything.

Let me try it again!  A flat strip of spring steel has two surfaces, the
one laying on the anvil, and the one facing outwards that you are going to
hammer upon.  As you hammer on the flat shim stock, the ends of the shim
stock will curl upwards, away from the anvil surface.  You can think of it
as the shim stock surface that is against the anvil is stretching out, as
Bob Smalser points out in his excellent articles.  The upper surface of the
shim stock that you are hammering (gently) upon seems to contract or
shrink, but I suspect it is mainly the underside that is expanding more as
the force vectors radiate outwards from the gently curved face of the
hammer (I'm not using the ball face of a mechanic's hammer- I'm using the
crowned face of a good older blacksmith type hammer- sharp edged flat faced
hammers are death to saws- you'll never get those marks off).  Constantly
wipe everything with an oily rag, and you have to use your best hammer
etiquette (no miss hits).

I have no floating anvils.  You have to go to Happy Camp in California for
that sort of stuff.  Scott G has several floaters in his shop, I hear.
That ain't wood smoke you see coming out of his windows.  Now you know why
it's called 'Happy Camp'.
Cheers

On Sat, Sep 9, 2017 at 10:05 AM, Matthew Groves 
wrote: