philip in china

I have quite a few similar. Some I made myself. Others I got from blackbird tools ( www.incandescent-iron.com ). I don't use them a lot but they can be very useful. I also made a stand and one day I shall post some images. I have been saying that for about 5 years now.

When you hit down the anvil hits up. The more bounce in the anvil the better that upward blow. That is why you want elasticity. Hammering on cast iron you are just driving the steel into the cast iron.

What is your price range? What work would you want to do on it?

Radius them off a bit and see how you get on. You need only a small amount of good edge. It is forging, not a beauty contest.

I have used an anvil with a side shelf and yes I liked it. It tapered almost to an edge and that was useful for splitting without using the hardie.

That is a wonderful size. Bigger than my Brooks and about the same size as my Bubba Rhino anvil. Either of those is bigger than I shall ever need. So well done.

I think I have a piece of the puzzle missing but don't worry.

I have a place in Bulgaria, in Gradishte near Veliko Tarnovo. Do we have any members who live in Bulgaria?

I am no wiser, probably just better informed. What is this about?

Could be of interest to me, though, for my place in Bulgaria.

Those cast iron anvils are a bit special aren't they? I use my big one as an advert. It is outside my smithy with a hammer bolted through the hardy hole.

Bright anvils are a good idea, especially the horn. You are less likely to catch yourself on a brightly painted horn (obviously not the top).

Why not paint the sides of an anvil? See my other thread about rust forming more slowly on the alloy steel rhino anvils in the shop as compared with carbon steel anvils.

What a lovely little paperweight. Don't expect to forge anything very big on that one. I have a similar one by the UK company "Record". It actually is an anvil but they were given away as adverts rather than sold as tools. My sons used to play with mine.

I believe Hanlon's Razor applies here. It wasnt intentional.  :P

You have lost me there!

If the end of the rail is bigger than the face of your hammer what are you worried about? I would go for vertical mounting of a piece long enough to set into the floor or get a slightly shorter piece and just cast it into a bucket of concrete.

After checking, they are cast from a tool steel.  The addition of the nickle and chromium retards rust somewhat compaired to simple carbon steels.  It should be noted that steel doesn't become stainless until it reaches 13% chromium.   It didn't come out and say but it's probably a 41XX series.

I don't think we have enough info to speculate on what series steel it is. I know they are "as hard as a mother in law's heart and as tough as a mother in law's tongue". They are not alloyed to anything like the levels of stainless of course.

Looks to me like a one off cast iron swage block. Probably just cast in sand to a pattern made up locally. The completely flat side makes it look as if it isn't professionally designed. A wonderful find.

So the alloy elements in the Rhino anvils probably does retard rust a bit then. I suppose older anvils were just a simple carbon steel rather than an alloy steel.

I was clearing up and doing a bit of painting around the shop today. I noticed that the two Rhino anvils seem to rust less than my Brooks and less than some of my loose tools. Would that be because of the nickel and chromium in the alloy of the Rhino anvils?

All the stuff is in the same shop, same humidity and temperature etc.

I have a number of hardies as you would expect. I have only one with a tapered shank. I don't think it matters. If you have a tapered shank make sure you have a good collar on it. Otherwise as you are using it you are driving a wedge into your anvil. At best that is likely to get jammed in fairly tight. At worst you would be risking breaking the heel off your anvil.

Probably my favourite hardie is one that fits my baby rhino anvil. That is a piece of railway line with the actual line cut off and the web forged to a rounded edge- like an axe. That one has a parallel shank arc welded underneath. Of course the base of the line provides a very large base. The anvil is small so the risk of a broken heel is greater than on one of my larger anvils.

Do you need to repair it? Can't you just work around it? Let's see some pictures first. Don't be in too much of a hurry to get welding.

Btw - anyone recognize the brand? Has raised lettering that I believe says "CWT" England, 38kg. Has good rebound, no top plate...

Does it say 3/4 CWT. 3/4 of a hundredweight would be 84 pounds which is bang on with what you have said about the weight.

I made a picture frame recently. Dead easy. I set myself the task of making it using only hammer, anvil, forge, chisel and punch. Yes it did come out and I have been asked to sell it but I think I will keep it. Maybe make a second one if the customer really really wants it.

A single bick is only "traditional" in some places. In continental europe the double bick was very common. Many anvils nowadays are double bick and they do give the user more shapes to use. (See the Hofi anvil and the Euro anvil for example). One neweer design is something like the Rhino. That has 2 bicks- well almost but you still get a step. Most double bicks don't have the step. When I used a double bick I must admit I missed that step. that is one reason why I like the Rhinos so much.

In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what anvil you have got- it is what you do with it that counts!

Cast iron or cast steel?  The ASOs at Harbor Freight are cast iron - although it's better than nothing, I think most smiths agree that they aren't worth the trouble.  A cast steel anvil, however, is nothing to sneeze at.  Anyone who wants to give me a Rhino or Nimba anvil (both cast steel), drop me a line.

Hear hear. A couple of good brands mentioned there.

Virtually all modern anvils are cast- but they are cast steel and the difference is chalk and cheese. I have a couple of Chinese made cast iron anvils here which I use for some purposes but not for forging on. Cast iron deforms so much as you are hammering it absorbs a lot of the energy of the hammer. You will wear yourself out working on one.

You would do much better just with a big piece of scrap steel.