Copper smithing question

[Sprout_Prime]

I have managed to use an Anvil to make some things, but when I tried to make copper shears, there wasn't enough moveable squares to push it into the green slots.  There were black slots but they wouldn't move, I eventually used another ingot (100 copper units wasted) to get enough moveable squares to fill in all the green slots and then I had to use the "split" setting of the hammer to remove the black squares.
What am I doing wrong?

By the way, I made a copper Rod and it also had some black squares but some of them were moveable so I didn't have to use another ingot.

In the future, is there a way to convert a 'failed' anvil smithing back into copper bits or something so I can reuse the copper?

[LadyWYT]

35 minutes ago, Sprout_Prime said:

In the future, is there a way to convert a 'failed' anvil smithing back into copper bits or something so I can reuse the copper?

You can use a chisel on the failed item in the crafting grid to break it back down into an ingot's worth of nuggets.

 

36 minutes ago, Sprout_Prime said:

when I tried to make copper shears, there wasn't enough moveable squares to push it into the green slots.  There were black slots but they wouldn't move, I eventually used another ingot (100 copper units wasted) to get enough moveable squares to fill in all the green slots and then I had to use the "split" setting of the hammer to remove the black squares.

Shears can be made from one ingot, though it does take quite a bit of hammering. The black slots will move, provided that they aren't locked in place by surrounding units and that you're pushing them toward available space. That is, the unit can be moved up one layer if no unit is blocking its path, and there is no unit attacked to the side opposite the direction it's being moved in when outside of the design grid. For example, if you're trying to move to the unit to the right, then it can't have a unit touching its left side if both units are outside the grid.

[Robert Johnson]

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  1 hour ago, Sprout_Prime said:

In the future, is there a way to convert a 'failed' anvil smithing back into copper bits or something so I can reuse the copper?

You can use a chisel on the failed item in the crafting grid to break it back down into an ingot's worth of nuggets.

Oh, rly?

[Maelstrom]

16 hours ago, Robert Johnson said:

Oh, rly?

Yes.   You can break down a copper or bronze anvil into 8 ingots if you use an undamaged chisel.

[Vexxvididu]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

Yes.   You can break down a copper or bronze anvil into 8 ingots if you use an undamaged chisel.

just to add to this, most work items are one durability to break down, an anvil is all the durability of a chisel of the same material.  So an iron chisel can work alright.

[Maelstrom]

Nah.   copper chisel.  Wasting a lot less durability since most if not all of the chisel will be used up in deconstructing the anvil.