Hardy Reducer

November 2012
Stainless steel

This piece of equipment may not strictly be art, but good industrial design does encourage making the tools we need as attractive as their utility allows. So what is it? Jewelers, like blacksmiths, use forming stakes like the one in the second picture lying on my anvil—the difference is that ours are a lot smaller. So much smaller that rather than fitting snugly into the hardy hole of the anvil (the square hole specifically placed in the work surface to hold forming stakes), they wind up kind of swimming in it—not useful for a tool that gets hammered on.

Enter the Hardy Reducer, which I modeled in CAD and had laser-sintered in stainless steel. Tapered like the tang of a traditional stake, the reducer fits into the hardy hole of the anvil and in turn receives the jewelers' stake in its own hollow center. The rounded mushroom lip both softens the lines and gives me leverage to pry the tool out of the hardy hole when I'm finished using it.