freeman

Roger that. Gave it a once over with my hand brush as directed, knocked some of the loose stuff off but otherwise didn't change much (no real surprise there). Top: Closeup of hardy and pritchart holes: Top of the horn and deck: Side: Front (two holes shown, one has what appears to be a section of ancient wrought square bar rusting out of it): Side view showing 1 0 1 stamped on side of anvil: Back: Bottom:

Thanks for the responses! I've taken some pictures that may (or may not) provide more info to go on: I couldn't even speculate on how this anvil was constructed. Some interesting points are the 0 and I I found stamped in the side and the two holes in the front side of the anvil, one of which appears to have a chunk of square rod rusting out of it.

My father-in-law just showed up with his grandfather's anvil in tow. Apparently it had been trapped for a decade under an outbuilding that had collapsed and then spent another two sinking into the dirt after the remnants of said building where cleared away. According to Dave he found the thing with a metal detector and had to dig it out with a trenching tool. Given the exposure to the elements this anvil has suffered it's in amazingly good shape. The only real problem I see with it is there is deep (1/8 inch) pitting along the horn. Otherwise it appears to be totally serviceable and a better anvil in general than what I'm using currently. I speculate that it's 25# heavier than my other anvil and the stump it's attached to combined, it rings like a bell at the slightest tap and the rebound off the thing is amazing. Needless to say I can't wait to get this bad boy cleaned up and in use. Any suggestions on how best to deal with the pitting on the horn would be greatly appreciated!

I haven't been able to find any maker's marks on my anvil although I finally managed to rub enough rust off the top of it that I can now see where someone stamped USA into the top just above the step. Whatever it is it weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 125#.

Mild steel I think. I believe it's A36.

3/8 rod, links are 2 1/16 inches +|- 1/16

I have a related question. I've noticed since I started smithing my right arm is noticeably bigger than my left and if I spend more than a couple hours working on something my right shoulder and neck tend to tighten up, sometimes leading to a headache. Should I ocassionally be hammering left-handed to keep things balanced? Is this a common practice?

Thank you! I've been smithing for about six weeks now. First two where with a homebrew gasser and a 70# bench vise with an anvil plate for an anvil. The last month I've been using coal almost exclusively and I've got a real anvil so that's been a huge help to me.

If I didn't know it was forged I would have thought this was machine fabricated. Excellent craftsmanship and a very neat tool!

I decided this morning to continue experimenting with forge welding. After watching Helmut Hillenkamp's video on forging chains I thought attempting chain would make a good excercise given how many welds are required. I cut up some round bar stock I had lying around and proceeded to weld a few links together. After taking a break for lunch I went back out into the shop and did a few more. I found that forging individual links seems to be pretty straightforward. I had a much tougher time welding rings that connected larger sections, having the extra rings in the way and the extra weight made the process kind of awkward and I ended up burning up a couple links and missing three welds (managed to recover one of the three).

Thanks for posting this! I'd been having problems working out how to get this style of bottle opener forged until I came across this.

Absolutely! Just tell me where and when.

After several failed attempts at various types of forge weld I finally got it to stick! Entire process went just as advertised. Drew out the loop and rolled it over the horn of the anvil, took a heat and brushed it real good and fluxed it, then took a welding heat and after the first couple taps it felt like I was hitting a solid chunk of bar.

I've only been smithing for about a month and a half now so take the following for what it's worth. I put together a single burner (Reil style, naturally aspirated) propane forge. A few weeks later I purchased a coal forge and 150# of coal as a package deal with an anvil and post vise. At the time all I wanted was the anvil and vise but eventually I got curious and fired the coal rig up. After a few weeks of working with both heat sources I've found that I much prefer the coal forge if I know I'm going to be making a day of it. I don't have to worry about running out of gas and I can work much larger stock due to the higher available heat. If I'm going to be doing a large number of small items like bottle openers or hooks I much prefer the gas forge since it lets me quickly juggle small pieces with no fear of burning anything up and no time wasted fiddling around with the fire. Having propane is also nice whenever I let a friend play with the forge for the first time since they don't have to fiddle with the fire or worry about burning up their work piece. So I guess long story short is, I like having both available and I use the coal rig roughly four times as often as the propane rig.

I've been lurking for a while but couldn't resist posting about this. A local smith decided he was getting out of the game. The following just followed me home: 1 125 lb anvil, unknown make a few minor dings around the edges otherwise appears to my untrained eye to be in great shape 13 sets of tongs of various shapes and sizes, all rusty but serviceable 1 custom built coal forge (6 square feet of bed surface) with hood and hand crank blower. Blower may need new bushings. 4" post vice, rusty as hell but serviceable after lubing it up good 3 hammers 2 books on blacksmithing 150 lb of coal + two galvanized trash cans for storage a small assortment of punches a couple random hardy tools various scrap bits, rusty files, bar stock, etc. I just graduated from the awful tongs I made and beating hot metal on a 60lb bench vise. Total cost: < $600.