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I Forge Iron

HB anvil


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Welcome aboard Bondo, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance.

Your anvil looks almost out of the box perfect, all it wants is some hot steel and a hammer plied on her. You'll be able to hand her down to your grand children in perfectly fine condition, with a little care.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Milling the anvil will decrease the value only because it will destroy the rebound. It will become totally unusable, soft and unresponsive.

 

The usability of the anvil is tied to a chilled, work hardened steel plate on top of a cast iron or wrought iron body. Only a few thousandths of an inch of the top is actually hard, if you mill that away, you have to start all over again work hardening the face.

 

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Crown has little real effect and dings will forge out when you put it to work. Dings are caused by people hitting the anvil with hammers, using tools incorrectly or just plain abuse. They make less difference in forged work than a person might think.

If for some reason you need a polished face then make a bottom tool with a polished face that fits the hardy hole.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Remember that sharp edges on an anvil are NOT a good thing as they tend to mark the work and can lead to cold shuts.  If you need a sharp edge make a tool for the hardy hole with one.  Smooth is better than flat on a face too; especially if you ever do bladesmithing as a slight swale makes straightening easier than dead flat does.

 

I have a smithing book from around the 1890's that mentions that the first thing you do with a new anvil is to round the edges---so all the folks who remove substantial thicknesses of the hardened face plate "to get the edges sharp" have got it wrong from the start.  In 34 years of smithing I have personally seen 4 anvils now that I would have said "you should mill that down a bit"  and they all were so badly cratered that building up would have probably been the better way to go!  (cf The Gunter method of anvil repair)

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Hi Bondo,

That is a beautiful anvil! Get her some hot steel on the face and hit it to get her shine again. She doesn't need anything else only some hard forge work!

BTW I wish I had one like your anvil.

Bests

Gergely

 

Thanks my braddah - I love it got it for 20$ in Kauai Hawaii. I work at a mechanic shop use it to shape body parts mostly but I want to build a forge. And make some real stuff some day.

How can I make it like new again it has a 1/16th of an inch crown ?

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If you are saying that it is either 1/16" concave or convex over the total length of the face, then there is no need to do anything. That is well within acceptable limits for hammering hot metal. An anvil is NOT a machinist's reference block. It is an assemblage of useful curves and lines and shapes, the same way a blacksmiths hammer face is never flat. We have flatters that are struck with a hammer for that.

Slightly concave is actually preferable, as it makes straightening long pieces easier, by compensating for steel's inherent springback effect.

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Having a slight swale in the face is actually a feature not a bug---especially if you do any blade forging as it helps when straightening to be able to push the blade just a bit past flat so it bounces back and stops at straight.  On a flat anvil it tends to bounce back to slightly curved again.

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How can I make it like new again it has a 16 of an inch crown inch crown ?   It's not upward it's been used a lot. Someone on here told me there's a few hundredths of really hard iron on my face of my anvil if so I'm sure mine is gone how can I make it like new if that's possible ? 

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Those few hundredths of an inch of work hardening were put there with a hammer, they did not come from the factory. They conform to the contours of the anvil face as it is. If you mill the face down, THEN you remove the hardened surface at the high points, and have to spend a few hundred hours with a hammer to put it back. And hope that you don't put any major nicks in the surface before it work hardens.

What TP said above: ain't nothing wrong with that anvil, 'cept you are afraid that it is somehow less than perfect, and that only a perfect anvil will give you perfect results.

In truth, a master could turn out acceptable work on a concrete block with a carpenter's claw hammer. Us lesser mortals get by with the best tools that we can get our hands on, and learn to work with it.

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Bondo: If you really must have a like new anvil there is only one way. Buy a new anvil and put it in a display case. What you're wanting to do to that lady WILL shorten her useful life just for what amounts to looks. If you believe a flat face is important then you need to develop your skills and knowledge before you start modifying the tools and equipment or you'll be damaging them instead of "repairing" them.

Perhaps an analogy will help. Suppose I bought a hopped up 1969 Camaro with a 450hp 327cid engine but was asking the guys on a hot car forum how to get it to idle smoothly.

I'm not taking a shot at you, it's common for people to want to start a new craft with good, even perfect tools. Unfortunately as new comers none of us knew what was good let alone perfect. Nobody was born knowing this stuff, we've all been there.

Frosty The Lucky.

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