Hi Rob,
Ron Fournier Enterprise has forming heads for sale. Google the name and you'll get his site. I'm not sure that's what ya'll are looking for though.
Frank

Hey Rob, I am looking for a door stop too. I have chased down a few blocks, without connecting. Instead, I have a lot of bottom tools, and I dish hot steel on the end of log. A tall one for stand alone work and a short one for bench use. The hot steel just burns the end grain as far as you need the dish to go. John Christiansen

Hi Rob, I got a Green Mengel B from Pieh Tool Co. to make the roses for the rose garden gate. Not sure what your budget is but I think it ran about $250 plus shipping. I love it, i find a new use for it every week(sometimes it does hold a door open). It has an 7-1/2" dia shallow bowl on the back, all sorts of cylinder and rt angle shapes on the sides and some smaller bowls and a spoon shape on the front.

Depending on what thickness of metal your working on and how many shapes your going to make, you might be able to carve out the shape in a stump or something. It will obviously get a little bigger each time you burn a bit off, but it should do the job for a few. Just a thought.

Jake

Frank-
Thanks for Ron's website! Excellent information there. Even though it isn't exactly what I am looking for right now, it cretainly made the bookmarks on my browser. Right now I am forming 3/16 sheet which I need to do hot, so I am probably going to go with the swedge block Jake mentioned (just hoping I could get something similar for a few less bucks).
Rob

As far as I know, Laurel stopped making anvils and swage blocks 4 or 5 years ago, and now is more a job shop and custom foundry.

I personally use a John Newman swage block- and I like it quite a bit. John is a blacksmith and machinist who posts over at the blacksmith forums, and lives up in Ontario. He is a master patternmaker, and makes a variety of cast iron stuff for blacksmiths, which is sold in the USA through the Kaynes- www.blacksmithsdepot.com
He makes several swage blocks.
I have used mine to make raised forms in thicker steel and stainless, and it works well.
One thing to remember- you do not need a bowl sized for every size dish you want to make- in fact, you usually want a much shallower bowl than you would think.
I have made a couple of donut stakes- this is a circle, made from 3/4" or 1" round, maybe 6" or 8" ID, with a yoke underneath it that holds it horizontal and lets you hold it in a vise or a hardy hole in an anvil. So you only make, and use, the part you need the most- the circular rim. And it actually works better in round bar anyway, as with a swage block you need to grind the heck out of it to get the same amount of nice radius on the edges.

Easier, though, and what I use these days for raising dish shapes in thicker stuff often, is a homemade swage die for the power hammer- the bottom die is a piece of 2 1/2" round I ground into a slight dome shape, and the top die was formed hot to match on the hammer. It allows you to power hammer domes easily. If I did a lot, I would probably make more of these in various sizes and radiuses- I didnt even use a good steel, as I always use it hot anyway, but I am sure it would work better if made from one of Rich's axles.

Try Salt Fork, http://www.saltforkcraftsmen.org/Tailgate.htm.
If they don't have your size, perhaps they'll cast one.
Jude