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A fellow I recently met was telling me a story about a buried anvil he remembers from childhood. We were discussing various topics and he comes out of the blue with this story. When he was a young man, aprox. 50 years ago, his grandad had a HUGE (according to him, maybe 750-1000lbs) anvil mostly buried in a spot he knows exactly where it is, with the point sticking up for something they did back in the last century. He told me he would be willing to help me dig it up, because he is interested in learning a bit about hand forging. He is building a post and beam building, frame is already up. I told him he absolutely needs hand forged hardware for it and I would tutor him in crafting some, if he was willing to make a deal on this beast. He seemed totally in line with this, and come the thaw, is willing to join me with the metal detector and go find this beast! I think it might be a horned bridge anvil, not sure. Problem is, May is a looong way off, and I find myself awake at nights thinking about it.

Agh....patience grasshopper...

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I truly hope that you can find that anvil!  I can't count the number of times someone's told me a tale like that only to leave me hanging!  Even if his memory's off a bit and the anvil's only a 100-pounder, it will still make a great story.

 

I'd be sorely tempted to head out now and just locate the thing even if you can't dig through the frozen ground.  At least then you'll know it's there and waiting on the thaw!

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There are ways to deal with frozen ground in the winter if you can locate it. We used to use simple concrete blankets to prevent the ground from freezing when temps would get above freezing during the day. The dark colored blankets would soak up the heat from the sun and the bubble wrap interior would hold that heat in the ground over night. Many times even if the ground was frozen solid, we' stake out the blankets in advance so the sun would warm the area we need to did in and thaw out the ground.

 

Another trick if we had to do posts in frozen ground was to build a fire where we would need to dig, The fire would thaw the ground and then we could dig with a post hole digger.

 

Big companies use propane ground heaters to heat the area so they can dig basements and footings even when temps are well below freezing all day long. A simple tent and a propane space heater might be enough to both help deal with the frost as well as making it a bit more comfortable to work.

 

 

I'm not sure how late in the season where you are the ground gets really frozen. Around here unless we have a really long cold spell early, the ground doesn't really freeze more than 3 to 4" until mid January. It's often still "digable" with a mid sized machine like a 5-7K mini excavator or a backhoe. I'd want one anyways if I had to pull a 750-1000 lb item out of the ground. I'd already have the excavator and trailer on standby at the rental center, just waiting for a break in the weather.

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For some reason as anvil stories get older the anvils seem to get larger.  But hope springs eternal....Hope you get to track this down as soon as possible---which is probably mud season  up there.....

 

I moved to NM knowing about an anvil in the sub basement of a hospital in Columbus OH---was originally told about it by an "orthopedic blacksmith"  who used it during WWII to make custom steel for splints, casts, etc.  I "happened" to run across a janitor later who told me it was still there; but ended up moving before getting any closer.

 

I also heard from an ex-worker at one of Columbus' two anvil manufactureres that when they shut the plant down there was a row of anvils along the steep bank down to the river.  None were visible when I checked it out a couple of decades later and the river bed in an *old* industrial area was about 40% iron/steel so no good using a metal detector.  The old grinding wheels used to clean up the faces of the anvils were in the river bed.  Natural sandstone and they rolled them down into the river when they got too small---at 4' diameter and a foot thick, still about a dozen sticking out of the water when the flow is low.

 

Out here I met a fellow hunting gold and silver in old mine areas who said he ran across smithing stuff on a regular basis---haven't convinced him to start dragging some out....yet.

 

The hunt is part of my entertainment budget and the relatively few payoffs make for great stories...

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  • 7 months later...

I spoke to the fellow again, the water is slowly subsiding, and he just told me this anvil was used for the oil rigs, and he believes it to be well over 500 lbs, he said I could have it for a smaller anvil and a couple of lessons, it looks like late this week or next we will go assess it. I will take pictures of the adventure "Raiders of the lost Anvil"!

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That's so cool!  I would love to have a hunt like that, especially if it's a biggun.  When I was a utilities locator, I always kept a sharp eye out for any tell-tale signs.  I had to walk down a lot of old roads with tons of run-down and abandoned buildings nearby.  Only ever found one small rivet forge in a tiny little building, and it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to find the owner.

 

A 500lb anvil, though, that I would hunt long and hard for!!

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At long last we have a schedule to go find it, we may not get it out of the ground, but I should have a much better idea of what it is, we heading up midweek and taking my metal detector to locate it, I will bring a shovel to see what size it is and how much of a pain it will be to get it out. Oh yeah, and a camera, so it can be properly chronicled on the great iforgeiron forum!!

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 Sounds like it will be an interesting week for you. Looking forward to hear/see what you find! Just thinking about finding an anvil in the ground gets me giddy lol. Maybe you will un-earth the elusive "1200 LB FISHER anvil" we've all been talking about lately  ^_^ .

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take a comalong or chain hoist, a length of chain and   three   8ft  2x4's to make a tripod and lift it out of the ground.  easy to get it into a wheel barrow from there and back to your car or truck.  A small anvil was found in the dirt next to an older house that had burnt down recently,  guess it would be a few years back now.  Dad was telling me about it one day.  Never did get to see it but he was trying to get it for me.   Good Luck and happy hunting!

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Woke up at 4:15 am this morning thinking about it, got the detector out, cleaned it up, replaced the batteries and ran some videos on using it. May take it out to a park at lunch today and do some testing, but finding the beast will not likely be too hard. Better safe than sorry though, and if the anvil is there, maybe some other stuff is as well!

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Well we found it!! Had to drive and hike and metal detect and dig dig dig, but lo and behold it was pretty close to where he said it was. About 12 inches below the surface. Problem is, it is huge and the water kept filling in and collapsing the sides of the hole. We got a rope around it and moved it. I has to be all of 400 plus pounds, it looks like a bridge anvil of some sort. It is just an iceburg for now, we simply did not have enough muscle to haul it out. We are going back in a few weeks with a tractor and come along. For now the adventure continues.

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boy I hope you mined that area before you left, I would be SO mad if somebody snuck out there and pinched it before I could round up the lifting equipment to retrieve it myself!  Awesome story and an even cooler find, I hope you get a lot of use from that thing and enjoy telling the tale to many generations of friends :)

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