ThomasPowers

what kind of air supply do you use? Coal is easier to keep going with hand powered air---bellows or hand crank blower. It is also easier to light by far!

crossing the prairie by wagon smiths used to support an empty barrel in the air and thrust their metal into that to see the true colour. Of course using real wrought iron they had more leeway as it positively loves temps that burn up modern steels.

What are the wear marks on it from use? May help a lot if you can tell where the stock was placed and where it was hit!

except that there were over 200 other english anvil makers most of which made similar anvils... Mousehole is the one we know best in the USA; but there seems to be a much wider variation of ones in Canada Which is why I suggested the acknowledged expert.

I've got an old english Powell with the same faceplate/heel piece alignement---only mine is missing the entire heel. As I recall Peter Wright was one of the first companies to brag that they used a one piece face plate---and that only after they had been making anvils for a considerable time! On some old anvils you can see where the plate pieces were welded as they wore differentially and so there will be shallow troughs across the face. One anvil making two people happy!

look into drawfiling as a good way to go once you have buzzed off the scale with an angle grinder

I don't usually use my SCA title; but you're welcome. Some of the knifemaking and swordmaking sites have had Sen threads on them; ISTR one at Swordforum.com in the makers section long ago.

I think that little anvil really needs to be seen by Postman!

Mark completely missed the part about it being CAST STEEL and not cast iron; so ignore that post, (good info just on the wrong topic). Cast steel (in the West) was the result of Huntsman's search for a better clock spring in the 1700's and resulted in a great leap forward in ferrous metal technology. It was also quite expensive and so such tools were stamped to indicate it was the top of the line stuff all the way until it pretty much died out a bit after WWI (mainly earlier; but Sheffield was still teeming some much later) The quality curve went: blister steel, shear steel, double shear steel, cast steel. So most likely a Chisel from the 19th century and the socket *may* be wrought iron. Heat well, keeping the using end cold! Tweak gently and re temper (not reharden!) it in the kitchen stove afterwards to make sure you didn't auto quench it anywhere.

Vulcan steel faced cast iron anvils, (like Fishers but of a much lower quaslity tier).

Note that a lot of old tools were not that great but the bad ones have a looong time to get trashed by a disgruntled user leaving a richer proportion of the good ones to us!

I use the very old non-platred ones and make Tyranosaurus Wrenches from them (I use the size that fits the propane fitting on my forge; the other end I forge down and cut teeth and punch nose and eyes and then detail it.0

Chinobi's right that when it comes to *sales* the "mystic of the object" plays a large part in the mind of the buyer. Objects made from old wrenches also come to mind.

try searching on "sen" may have to use google as search here doesn't like short words as I recall.

The face was welded up from several slabs and it looks like the heel weld and the face plate slab weld were aligned making it more prone to failure at it. TONS of life left in that anvil and a great price to boot especially in an anvil poor region! I tell folks to look out for "damaged" anvils as they are often still very usable and often dirt cheap!

Remember too that the tang of a knife does NOT need to be hardened and if it is should be drawn way back compared to the blade

May be a great price where you are at but I can mix that up far cheaper down here with 20 mule team, roach proof---(I like to buy it even cheaper at the fleamarket!) and powdered iron that I just happened to scrounge over the years for my "possibles pile"

I need to get a picture of a couple of my stands---made from *VERY* aged 2x10" oak used as the floor of a horse trailer and aged till the trailer was scrapped. (scrapyard gave them to me for free!) I had to buy the very long bolts used to hold the guardrails onto the wooden posts alongside the road, (20 cents a pound at the scrapyard). Cut the boards to proper height---with 2 end boards an inch or two higher to hold the anvil in place. Lined them up on an I beam turned on it's side and pipe clamped them together. Drilled them with a bit designed to drill between studs in a wall and ran the bolts in and tightened them up. Total cost say US$2 a stand and very very rustic---rough sawn, aged and abused oak, unfinished. (the better stuff is a set of shelves in my smithy) This gift finally got the last of my using anvils on stands for when I teach---stumps being hard to scrounge in the desert. Made 3 stands.

RR spikes are just *SCRAP* of a particular size, shape and alloy as such they are no worse and NO BETTER than other scrap depending on what you want to do with them. Personally they are a poor shape and alloy for my uses and so I don't use them. Don't see the point in using them for things they are not good for just because they are a RR spike! Far better for me to get a length of 5/8 hot rolled scrap than mess with forging a spike into something that doesn't need the head---now for items that you need the extra mass of the head; well then they are the preferred starting point. What I've mainly used RR spikes for is tent stakes drawing them out on the powerhammer to a foot or more---also a good task for teaching new people how to use a powerhammer. I've also seen Billy Merritt's pattern welded RR spike...

drift not punch. Probably started out as a punch and got modified to suit a specific person/job.

set the nut in lead in the back section---wheel weights would work

Since I have anvils with both 7/8" hardy holes and 1" hardy holes and *students* I do not like tapered shanks *except* that I like the shank to extend past the bottom of the hardy hole and the last bit it tapers so you can't rivet a stuck tool in the hardy hole. I have been known to take hardy hole tooling I have purchased and heat it up and use a triphammer to draw out the end of the shank to make sure it will protrude and be easily tappable (as punched hardy holes can be a bit off custom fit hardies may want to bind in other anvils) The most fun was making hardy hole tooling for my large anvil's 1.5" hardy holes: I have been been buying top tools and using my large screwpress to close up the eye section to fit---I can always drift them back out if I want to use them as top tools and top tooling with mangled impact ends are pretty cheap!

Good Job; it does look like some pretty heavy hammer dings in it though; is your hammer's face dressed nicely?

Wilkinson wrought iron body

Don't forget forge brazing or to just neck down the ends where the legs begin and twist them together and then bend out and down---the simplest method! Might look how people in the SCA have been making these very same items for over 40 years now...