That said
Thom D
>I made my holdfast out of cold rolled, or maybe hot rolled steel. I didn't heat treat it I don't believe it is required, it is mighty thick stuff and has quite a bit of bite as is. This was one of the first projects I did on an anvil. I had minimal idea of what i was doing. It worked almost perfectly right out of the blocks, then I made a small change and had to fight back to what it needed to be.
Basic process was heat the end, hit with hammer until it is flatenned, you can read up on drawing out, and various types of peen. In fact I have some stuff to make a guilotine tool and that would be perfect, though in this case I want it as much wide as out so a regular hammer works fine. Then you flip it over and hammer a curvature in the pad over the anvil horn near the top, and take it to the angle you want. Then heat back a bit, and when you get that heat, take the main bend over the narrow point of the anvil. Periodically sight foot body alignment for whatever degrees you are shooting for. That simple.
By the way, what I do is take some plasticine and go through the process with a small hammer or block of wood. It's the same with the metal when it comes time to forge. I didn't do that here, this hold down is just too easy to make.
If you want one of those leaf ends, you just need to buy or make the die. There is a guy on ebay who sells them, but basically you just heat a block of metal to a good heat and use a cold chisel (hot chisel in this case) to cut the stalk and vein, then weld it to a hardy hole piece of stock. you can make the chisels out of hot rolled rod, and quench them is super quench for a touch of additional hardness.
I got all my tips from the article in Woodworking, they did a shootout. When you make your own, the big deal about a particular HD is no biggie. You can make tiny adjustents if it isn't perfect for what you want or your specific hole size or top thickness. Maybe there is a super HD that works in the widest range of benches, but when you make your own you won't care.
The cast ones never seem to come through reviews all that well. Ductile Iron is the industry standard for sewer pipe, that doesn't make it bad, but I'm not taking the Rah Rah too seriously either, I'm not paying extra... It's like this spinning wheel I am modeling mine after; there is a big surcharge for a wheel made out of solid MDF vs solid hardwood. It actually spins really well...