piedmont

Just bought a 310 lb cast steel anvil from my friend who found it in New Orleans. He bought it for $200! The only marking on it is "MADE IN SWEDEN." No handling holes or numbers, and the feet have flat ledges. No indentation on the bottom. Bounces a bearing like a rubber ball and has good edges for the most part. I think it's a Kohlswa but could be Soderfors-- can't wait to get a stand made and start using it! Sitting on top of it is my Hay-Budden, 129 lbs, made in 1909.

To get back on topic: Does anyone know much about Columbian anvils? I know they were made in Cleveland and only between 1905 and 1925 or so. Did the logo change much over that period? Mine doesn't have the C in a triangle, though it could be due to the rust. The pictures of Columbians that I've seen that have the raised circle are never accompanied by pics of the other side, so I don't know if those examples have the triangle C. What's the alloy of steel in a cast steel anvil? How deep does the hardening go on the face? And Thomas, I'm trying to get some smithing-related activities into this trip. I'll be in Austin TX all next week. My wife will be at a conference there and I'll be exploring the town and hill country. I'll visit the Zilker Botanical Garden, where they have some really extraordinary pieces of forged work, like this one: It's apparently a pretty active town for professional blacksmiths, and I'd like to tour a studio or two if it's no bother to the artists.

Yeah, that's my plan for when I get back. I'm away from it for the next week, so all I can do is look at my photos of it and do vacation-type things to take my mind off it ;)

Bentiron, It's my first and only for now, which is why I'm not gonna mess with it too much. And don't get me wrong-- I LOVE the thing. It bounces a hammer back as good or better than the anvils at the smithy I'm learning at and it's bigger than I thought I could get for the money in this area. Beautiful lines and a 1" hardy. I got it and a NICE champion blower and a well-made shop-built forge for $350. Depending on how you value the other two, I've got about $1.50/lb or less in it. But the photos aren't showing the defects very well. The face pitting is bad-- lots of them and up to 1/16" deep. I've worked on an anvil with pitting that bad and I'd much rather it be smooth. If I can get even a small area smooth and reasonably flat, it would be nice. Sask Mark, Yep, all steel, from face to bottom. And the casting lines can be seen clearly in the second photo. Still no comments on the maker-- here's another Columbian with that same raised circle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-h7HYOYadA. Think it's a match?

Thanks for the advice Thomas. The milling won't happen any time soon-- I first want to use it as-is before messing with it. BUT the face is in bad shape-- I can't use it for flattening because it's nowhere near flat, and it's pitted enough to make planishing problematic at best. It's mainly the pits that make me want to resurface it. I was thinking of only going down far enough to get rid of most of the pits, even if some of the right front is still sloped. I wonder how thin that hardened layer is. And what about the horn? I've heard that a steel horn can be heated and forged into a better, more conical shape rather than having to grind off material. I wouldn't dream of trying that by myself, but my mentor has over 25 years' experience.

Thomas, I used to be in the piedmont region of Georgia. I'm in MS now and the anvil was bought in Birmingham AL. Grant, I don't know if the face plate is separate or not-- I know very little about cast steel anvils. So did they just flame harden the face? The body of this one is a good bit softer than the face. I'm kinda thinking it's a Columbian anvil because the raised circle looks like this one: http://blacksmith.or...olumbian-Anvil. But it doesn't seem to have the other identifying marks of a Columbian. As far resurfacing goes, I wonder about how well it would work to do the bottom first if the top is very sloped because of wear. Mine slopes down from the heel to the right front corner. I guess they shim it up to get the sides straight up and down?

Hi y'all. I just picked this up a few days ago and it's a bit of a mystery to me. I've looked through a lot of online resources and photos and nothing's an exact match. Clues: 1) Body is cast steel, definitely NOT cast iron. 2) No readable trace left of any logo, and no numbers on the base, though they could have been there at some point and corroded away. 3)There's no depression in the bottom, oval or otherwise. 4) Horn is somewhat duck-billed and pretty blunt. 5) Face is approx. 3/4" thick at the heel where there's no wear, and mushroomed down to about 5/8" on the far side next to the horn. 6) Raised circle on the base-- easy to see in photo 1. Despite the mushrooming, it appears to be a very hard face. At some point I may resurface to get a 9/16" to 5/8" nice flat face. Somebody was using/abusing the hell out of it for a number of years. There are hundreds of small cuts and chisel marks all over the base. I'm out of town now so I can't do any more tests or measurements on it for a few days. Thanks in advance!