Billingstwo

Bought this one about a year ago, Cannedy Otto from around the early 1930's.

material - $22
time/labor - 8 hours
reuse, re-purposed & recycled - $0
Wife happy - Priceless

Ok, to begin my wife is originally from California & while she was not raised by hippies in a commune, she was taught early on to recycle and is constantly nagging suggesting that we "reuse, repurpose & recycle". She also enjoys dabbling in blacksmithing, throwing pottery, DIY, home improvement, etc.

On various occasions she has discovered some unique, unusual and very inexpensive tiles & tile fragments (from ceramic to porcelain to slate & stone) in resale, antique, junk shops, yard sales & auctions. All very cheap or even free (made me happy). We find tile tables/furniture interesting and I suggested we make our own rather than paying retail.

This is the process & results. I will gladly respond to any inquiries for details (I'm not good at writing instructions, she's the trainer not me). I've loaded the pictures in the order of the process (as I remembered to take them).

Thanks for the tip, I will have to try the hole saw idea, my drill press will go down to 68 rpm just as is but I have given a VFD some thought.

Thanks for the advice, I have a few old jacobs chucks and will just use one of them until I can find a great deal on some taper bits.

I live in South West Missouri, so not close at all but I would pay for shipping depending on what you are willing to part with.
My Canedy Otto drill takes a #4 MT, what are the tapers on your drills?

I was wondering if you still have the drill bits for sale, I just bought a Canedy Otto drill press ( for right at $100) and would be very interested in any or all of the drill bits, depending on price.

It looks like a Hay Budden and based on your measurements should be in the 400# range. If you can get a clear picture of the markings on the side I could tell you the actual manufactured weight. Or you could look up the markings in "Anvils in America". Congratulations either way, great find.

Here are a few photos of the forge I built about a year ago, it works better than I had hoped.

Thanks for the info on power down feed and thanks for the compliments, this thing is realy in great shape for it's age. This machine takes a #4 MT and any help with drill bits would be greatly appreciated.

Got it moved in and have started the reassembly process, just in time also, was about 58 degrees yesterday & today in the high teens.

Thanks, I am sure glad this one came home with me & my wife actually did the negotiating with the guy.
The power down feed has 4 settings .003, .005, .007 & .010, how do you determine which rate of feed for drill size and does the material you are drilling factor in?

Just picked this up on Saturday & can't wait to get this in the shop, will have to disassemble it some as I don't have a forklift like the guy I bought it from.

No thanks, took a bit of looking to find this one, just curious are ebay prices the real going rate or are they for people who want their anvil search to only take 30 minutes?

I bought a 404 lb Peter Wright in great shape for $600, don't know if I got a good deal or paid going rate but either way I am happy.

I saw a web site where a company in England is taking scrap wrought iron and rerolling it into bars and rods for resale, my question is does anyone in the United States do that & if not where are good places to find wrought iron?

I would agree that 200 lb or larger would be a good rule of thumb.

I think you have a very good point, it does depend on what type of work you are doing. The reason I was asking is that on ebay many sellers list there anvils as "shop size" and the weight might be as little as 100 lb or as much as 500 lb, so I wanted to know if there was a specific size of anvil that most people agree is "shop size"

I was wondering how much does an anvil have to weigh to be considered a shop anvil?

Here are mine, took quite a while to find them but well worth the time as I use all 3 on a regular basis, 404 lb Peter Wright, 179 lb Peter Wright & 128 lb Hay Budden.

Thank you, I think there are still very good deals out there but you just can't get in a hurry, I passed on a 247 lb peter wright about 3 weeks before I bought this one and am glad I did.

I bought that anvil and am very pleased, had it weighed where I buy my coal & it turned out to be 404 lb. I gave $1.48 a lb for it and could not be more pleased.