VaughnT

Excellent craftsmanship. I'm a bit jealous!!

The anvil isn't oriented properly to maximize the blow of the hammer. It should be vertical rather than horizontal, and you'll get a lot of ringing as a result. Not bad for making knives, but most knife work doesn't require a lot of forging. The forge look to be a blown forge, but the chamber doesn't look very large. This isn't a bad thing if you're just starting out, though. You could make a lot of hooks, chisels, knives, etc in a forge that size. The tooling he has looks to be well built. Overall, I'd suggest that you go for it. If you don't have any kit, this looks to be a good starter set up. You can't buy a forge for $175 from any of the commercial sources and you'd need at least $50 in material to make your own. The tools can be used for a lot of different jobs, not just knives. As long as you're happy with the purchase, I don't see how you could go wrong.

That's a beaut, for sure! I'd give most anything for an anvil like that!

I don't have a maker's mark, yet. I don't produce enough stuff for sale that I have to worry too much, but I would like one. My problem has always been getting a design that I liked. I'm not very "artistic" and figuring out a way to turn my initials (VT) into an identifying mark has been problematic. I really like the old touchmarks you see on silver goods and the like. A simple cartouche that contains the mark is, in my opinion, very classy. Andrew Jordan's mark is very classy and does a lot to NOT distract from the knives he makes.

Fantastic! Glad you got it, and for a great price, too!! Can't wait to see her up close.

And that is why I don't advocate the primitive or tribal style. Daniel Winkler makes some great knives that have the forge-finish. Same for Tai Goo. But the overwhelming majority of people that I see trying it are just using it to mask their laziness. Primitive man build the pyramids without modern tools. They built aqueducts and miles of roads. Machu Pichu and the Nazca Lines went up without any help from Caterpillar or John Deere. Why? Because those craftsman had patience. Every time I see a knife with a pock-marked blade and a giant gap between the parts, I can't help but wonder what it could have been had the maker not been so keen to get it onto the internet as quickly as possible. Sometimes it only takes another hour with the sandpaper. Sometimes it takes leaving the project to sit for a week while you think about where you want it to go.

Sounds like he was hoping you'd bite at the bait once you saw all those anvils just laying around. Personally, I'd buy a banged up anvil if it was cheap enough because large chunks of iron are just scarce in my area. The scrap yards don't sell to individuals, not that I can find, and the employees snag up any anvil that comes in because they know it's worth more than scrap prices. If you don't have an anvil, the Soderfors is a good anvil even if it's a bit buggered. At the price he's asking, that's not too bad a deal as long as the face isn't dinged all to pete. Sure wouldn't hurt to offer him $150 cash, and be sure to mention that it will cost you more than $50 to get that edge welded up...

It's got a decent face from the looks of it, and the price is less than $2/lb. While that one edge is really hacked up, it wouldn't be too much to weld it back into shape and that might help you negotiate some on the price. For general tinkering, I think you should go for it. A better quality anvil is only going to cost you more money and not provide an appreciably better work surface.

I know how difficult it can be to work on an anvil that has a face that rolls like the ocean! It's aggravating and time-consuming, to say the least. What are you grinding with the cups? Looking at your pictures, I can see some need to clean up the gouges and edges prior to welding, but it sounds like you're looking to level the top prior to adding hard-face. Did I read that right? Were it I, I would prep the face for welding and then go to it. It's like adding pavement to a pot-holed road; you don't need to level out the road prior to resurfacing it. Some weld is used to build up the low spots, then you go over the entire face to even things out. It's tricky around the hardy and pritchel, but copper dams help prevent weld flow where you don't want it.

That's a neat anvil stand, Brian! Looks like a large bearing race and I love how you adapted it for your needs. That's some thinking outside the box right there...

Every one of those pieces is an anvil! You're a very lucky fellow to have found such a nice collection. I would turn any one of them on end, with a nice tripod or cement base for stability, and hammer away! Look up "post anvil" and you'll find dozens of possibilities.

Thin the stock before you wrap it. Spread the center section so that the sides of what will be the eye are drawn down into the ears like you want, say going from 1" wide parent stock to 1.5" wide, but only .250" thick. Then wrap around a mandrel and weld closed. Once you have the ends welded into one, you can work the eye a bit with the mandrel in place to shape it more to your liking, maybe drawing the ears down a bit more. Did that make any sense?

Instead of a tradition pin and knuckle type hinge, what about adapting a ball/socket hinge that would allow a range of motion similar to what you see on a camera tripod? I could see using trailer hitch balls welded to the gate...

Starting with 1"x.5" stock, I would have done a wrap-around eye and forge welded the to ends together, then shape the end to accept the tool steel bit. Half-inch stock is a bit thick for this application, in my opinion, but you have to work with what you've got.

That Fisher anvil in Kentucky is a very very good price and you should jump on it! If I was closer, or working right now, I would jump on it in a skinny minute. Heck, buy it for $2/lb and you can turn around and sell it to someone else in a year or two for $3/lb without any trouble at all. Good quality large anvils are not easy to come by. A lot of the price depends on what you need. I have a small anvil, only 120#, and it's more than enough for a hobbyist that isn't planning on doing much with heavy stock, or planning to move in a year or so. A bigger anvil is usually better, but not so much that a beginner necessarily wants to shell five or six bills. That's a heck of investment for a hobby start-up. If it has good rebound, good ring, and is a size you are comfortable with, look for something around $2/lb. Cheaper is better, but something that's in mint condition might be worth $3/lb or more if it's what you want and you have the expendable capital.

My forge is nothing but 5 firebricks stacked to make a chamber that's just big enough for a large-ish knife blade. With a weed-burner torch, it works well. I'll be getting a few more fire bricks in the near future so I can increase the size to accommodate odd shapes. I was thinking that painting the inside of the forge with some ITC-100 would help the bricks last longer and the forge to get hotter faster.

That is one pristine anvil! Make sure you buy your friend a case of his favorite beverage, and show up the next time he needs a favor!!! No idea on the age, but if you can pick it up you know the 918 on the side isn't in stone weight or straight pounds. Probably the year of manufacture, as you surmised. Generally, a fellow in good shape can lift 240 pounds with effort, so you know the anvil probably isn't heavier than that depending on your strength.

That looks horrible. You should send it to me for proper disposal! Seriously, though, that's going to make a very good anvil. The only problem I see is running a shin into that rebar sticking out the sides. I was actually thinking about making a cement stand for my anvil so I appreciate you showing the steps. I wouldn't have thought it would take three bags of mix! Wonder how much you could thin that down by dropping in some brick/block pieces. Seem to remember somewhere that you could use broken cinder blocks for no more than 40% of the pour, but that was for patios and the like.

You're right, T. I've asked everyone I run across about any anvils they might know of, but I haven't gotten a lead on anything. Of course, the one time I asked a guy that I would never have guessed even knew what an anvil was, he had a small on in his back yard and gave it to me for $30! It's beat all to get out, and it's loud, but it works. That big Fisher, though, that's a dream I'll look forward to realizing one day. A quiet anvil, big enough for anything I might want to do. :wub:

I keep watching and waiting. One of these days I'll run across a collection like that, and it will have a gigantic Fisher in near-new condition. That's my dream...

Yup, jump on that deal. Offer the guy a few pot hangers made on his anvil as a bit of a thank you, too.

Yea, a buck-thirty a pound is a great price. To get a new-new anvil for that kind of money is almost unheard of. Congrats on the score!

A lot really depends on the type of work you're doing. As a hobbyist smith, you don't need a hardy hole or pritchel hole in your anvil. These were invented because they made the london-pattern anvil a fairly good all-around tool. Yea, they can come in handy, but you can use a good heavy bench vise to hold a hardy tool. For making knives, a "traditional" anvil has a lot of features that are just a waste of space. A square or rectangular block of steel set into a heavy stand is all you really need, and it will work for a lot of general smithing as well. If you can find a metal supplier in your locale, they might be able to set you up with a cut-off piece of steel that's plenty big enough and heavy enough to do a lot of work on.

Less than a dollar a pound? I'd jump all over that deal! The face looks to have a little sway in it, but nothing you can't work with as-is. Great piece of equipment at a really great price!

That's a good job. I had the chance to buy a Fisher that was eaten up on the side like that, but turned it down when the seller couldn't tell me what it weighed. He was advertising it as a 300# anvil for $600, but I didn't get notified of the damage until I drove up to Asheville to pick it up (amazingly, it wasn't disclosed in his ad or the photos he sent me!). First thing I noticed when I turned the anvil around was that the "other" side was heavily damaged, and the whole thing sure didn't weigh 300#! Found out later that it weighed 238# and passed on the deal.