The detail that jumped out at me first is the anvil mounting: the block is anchored straight through the head bolt holes of the engine with long deck bolts. Building a forging machine around a green cast-iron inline six-cylinder Chevrolet block, and using its own fastening points to hold the anvil, is exactly the kind of junkyard thinking this challenge rewards. The base rests on that engine block, and a bright red steel frame carries a heavy red anvil block above it, fitted with a lower die.
The drive side is just as inventive. An electric motor on the frame turns the flywheel through a V-belt, and a clutch worked by a foot pedal on an idler pulley regulates the motor, with a curved metal belt shoe handling belt slack. The piston assembly that drives the overhead arm was welded up from cut-down piston sections, with pins turned 90 degrees, and connects through a large threaded coupling nut.
Other touches worth noting: a thick wooden beam runs across the machine as the walking arm, sprung on trailer leaf springs arranged as a parallelogram linkage, and the right end carries a red painted hammer head. One spring pack even carries a label reading 'TBT-109'. And it does real work, too: a piece of heated steel stock gets forged and drawn out under the hammer.
The obvious trade-off is noise. It is extremely loud, and the vibrations reach through the whole house, while the current setup has no soundproofing and sits in a rented garage. That seems like the sort of thing worth sorting before any long forging sessions.
Project by nakedanvil. Watch it on their YouTube channel: