ThomasPowers

The "life" of the anvil is the fairly thin hardened face; removing any of it cuts its life down and may destroy it as an anvil. Of the hundreds of anvils that have been shown on this site; I only recall *1* where I advised milling the face. To me it's like asking " I want to make my race car go faster by making it lighter---is there any problem with removing the engine?"

Considering you can do great work in a hole in the ground with a hair dryer as a blower I think that's over priced by a bit more than a factor of 3. As far as resources go your local public library should be able to get you most any blacksmithing book in the english language through Inter Library Loan. I would suggest picking up a copy of "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" and see how to make or scrounge everything you need.

If you were looking for a vehicle would you buy the dumptruck because someday in the future you might want to haul some gravel? I might if it was cheap, easy to find, I had the money to spend and it didn't get in the way of my daily routine. If you have to carry your anvil up the rickety stairs from the basement, across the kitchen and out the back door every time you wanted to forge a large anvil would NOT be more efficient over all (been there done that!) If you will be moving a bunch an anvil bigger than what 2 people can easily manage is a pain (my last shop move took more than a flat bed semi and cost a fair bit indeed!) One of the best known "modern Smiths", FW, worked his career on a 165# anvil. And when I had to split off a set of tools to take down to my rental house just to prevent smithing withdrawal it was one of the 165# anvils that came along and not the 515# shop beast. If you are planning to do large work it's more important to get a powerhammer than a large anvil and so save your money towards *that*!

So what does the bottom look like? The shape of any indentation can rule in or out a lot of brands.

I would suggest you *buy* a commercial crucible for safety's sake. The amount of time involved will way trump the cost of a crucible and the cost of an ER run can make even that look miniscule. If you want to experiment on making your own crucibles; you want to do that *AFTER* you have the basic process down pat and have more experience working with refractories. Just like you would hope your heart surgeon had a sound training on operations before he opens your chest!

They only pictures I have of anything are those taken by other people. They look like tin snip handles with the bits forged down into scrolling tong bits...

Rebound will improve when the rust is removed from the face. You got a good deal on that one! BTW are there "flats" along the front and back feet?

Very little of armour making is done an an anvil face. Generally it is done on stakes and they and the hammer should be polished. I assume you are looking at armourarchive.org for armour making tips? See the ball bearing test at anvilfire.com for rebound testing---but it requires a flat face for good results

OK some of the old ones were 900 rpm and QUITE expensive to get one that speed today!

Another method is to take a 55 gallon drum with a bung on the side near the bottom and trace a piece of 2x12 on the inner curve of the open top and cut it to fit inside and lag bolt it in place. Fill the barrel with water and you have about 400 pounds of weight. Need to move it? Remove the bung and empty it. I've used this for a travelling set up as it's light and easy to move empty and site owners *like* all that water in the smithy for some reason. Not so good in an inside smithy where 50+ gallows of water on the floor when you empty it might be a problem... (I learned this set up from a travelling lady smith who did very nice hand forged labrys for radical feminists; great blade work, interesting niche market.)

All depends on what you want to do, Note that with access to a welder you can make larger tubing. I plan to add a 3rd large vise to my set up right in the middle of the floor so I have nearly spherical access to it. As it will be in the way when I don't need it; I plan to make it removable with the tube in tube plan I mentioned. (every once in a while I need to back my truck into the shop to drop off something heavy...)

What are you trying to do with the cold sheet metal? The answer depends on what you are not telling us. Sort of like asking a question about a car and mentioning you want to race it without saying whether it's drag racing, formula 1, stock, etc. I would check the hardness of the face as that does seem a bit abused.

Have you asked over at the backyardmetalcasting.com a website dedicated to casting?

Might be worth taking the motor to be evaluated by a motor shop. The originals were generally a slower speed than typical modern ones. Mine is a hulking brute many times the size of a modern one of that hp rating---but I was told that when it gives up the ghost I should expect to go up by about 1.5 times the hp rating as the old large motors have more torque as they have longer moment arm distances.

I saw one that had the "chilled face cast iron anvil" as the lowest level---what was the HF tools of the day: intended for light and few instances of usage. Notice that they don't guarentee the low level one...

The ends should be spaced for the material you tend to use---generally if you are using tongs it's fairly thin stuff and so the bits should be close together. Thicker stuff we tend to use a hammer or bending fork on. I once forged a set of scrolling tongs from an old drop forged set of tin snips---I was finding them for US$1 at fleamarkets and picked up a rusty pair to "play" with.

The long thin heel makes one think of the later American anvils like A&H. If the underside of the heel shows the steam hammer blows---undulating surface then it's pretty much identified as an A&H as they tended to not clean them up in that location. Also give some thought to the next generation or two. While you may not be interested in smithing it's a sad thing to find out that your great grandfather was a smith and *NONE* of his tools are left in the family. (At least *I* was very sad...)

Generally we suggest someone use the anvil for a year and then decide what they want to do with it. Why do you want to cold forge steel plate? Even in the renaissance they tried to work steel plate hot whenever possible! (modern armourers who work a lot of cold steel plate often find that their joints are shot from RSI compared to people working hot).

Since you will never be working heavier than 1/4" sq stock 32" will be fine. Since you want to work 2" sq stock 32" is way too little. one of my 6"' vises is fastened to the utility pole sunk 4+ feet in the dirt and concreted thast support the shops roof truss.. Another is fastened to a strong heavy work bench. One is for heavy work and the other for "lighter" work. Another thing to consider is to sink a larger tube in the ground and concrete that and then "drop" that tube in side it (well greased of course) and have it removable.

After church yesterday; I wirebrushed and waxed 7 more links of my no weld chain---about 10' so far. I also fired up the forge and finished the hot work on a rasptle snake for the church's fund raiser----after a week of 112 degF highs last summer we decided that updating the air conditioning on the 1916 church might be a nice thing. It's a small church so we're all pitching in to raise the money needed. While waiting for it to heat up I punched the bottle caps for it's tail. Now all I need to do is to wire brush it, wax it and thread the caps on the tail and work them a bit so it rattles like a real one...

Sink a section of telephone pole 4' deep in the dirt near your anvil. Will work for the postvise when it shows up too.

search on striking anvil

Ahh Peter; Intrex leveled the stand it's the ANVIL that is uneven on the bottom. Now it would be possible to flip the anvil upside down on a large mill and mill the base flat and parallel to the face; but a bit of time and expense when bedding it to the stand would work.

Newer anvils were generally a one piece tool steel top welded to a mild steel base. (sometimes even arc welded at the waist.) However two brands: the Fisher and the Vulcan were made with a steel face plate heated to welding temp and the cast iron poured onto it to get a good bond---a very tricky process; you may want to research the Fisher Patents. However these anvils pre and post dated the 1920's so I don't know what you are thinking of? You could probably replicate the process for under US$100,000, (learning curve, equipment, fuel costs, etc) and probably produce lower grade anvils for about the same price as solid cast steel ones of much higher grades. Fishers are generally considered quite good anvils while the vulcans are not rated as high; but both are considered real anvils as it's the steel face that makes the difference. If you look through the old Sears & Roebuck catalogs, say the early 1900's (reprinted in 1969) you will see that they sell the complete range of top of the line anvils---made by Hey Buden and rebranded at one point through cast iron ASOs and the price reflects the quality levels.

Thanks for mentioning that! We get a lot of young folks through here who don't know how to do dangerous stuff safely! (and some old coots too...)