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?