philip in china

Agreed Fatfudd. Try it and see. Don't worry about no pritchel hole. If you really miss one just borrow a magnetic bed drill and drill one the size you want, where you want it. PM me if you want precise details. Some time put her on a scale and see how much she does weigh but what does it matter? If you can do the work on it and it is OK then you have got an anvil. "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck".

Stourbridge is a town in England right in the heart of the "Black Country" which was the area where almost all English anvils were made. "Warranted" doesn't mean a thing. It was supposed to mean it was a good product but really had no meaning at all. Use it and see how you get on. It looks fine.

Great. So pleased it is an anvil and not a drop from an I beam.

I would say that anvil has definitely been refaced. The vice is wonderful. Never seen one like that before!

Goody gutsy stand there. Well done.

The thing is the ratio of hammer weight to anvil weight to get efficiency. As said above a century or more ago most general smithing anvils were small by modern standards and those were used all day by full time smiths. My 1907 catalogue lists anvils upto 84 pounds. Anything bigger was to special order! My baby portable anvil is about 120 pounds. That one gets used for everything if I am away from base. In the shop heavy stuff gets done on the bubba Rhino or the 280 pound Brooks. A good idea for a stand is just cast a block of concrete. Then get the anvil anchored to that. I know some people don't liek concrete bases but I have never understood why. It is very heavy and improves the behaviour of the anvil. If you do that put a couple of pieces of plastic pipe horizontally through the block then twist them out before the concrete has gone rock solid. That way you will have holes for porter bars. I used to have a base made like that for my Papa Rhino and it was great.

Amazing what you can shift once it is on a roller. Sledgehammer a wedge (simple machine) under anything really heavy. Get a lever(simple machine) under it. Then insert a rooler (simple machine). then just roll it until it tipes, you can then get another roller under the load. 3 rollers is the minimum to work easily.

Are there any advantages to having an anvil which is hardened throughout?

Do you have the bit that is broken off? That should weld up OK.

I use a small plate- an offcut about the sisize of a playing card, I welded about half an inch of heavy pipe that the toe actually stands in. The plate is anchored into my concrete floor with a couple of rawlbolts.

Why a small face? You can do small work on a large anvil but not vice versa. I missed a deal on a 250Kg Brooks a few years ago. It would have been wonderful....

If you are paying... a 250 Kg Brooks either single or double bick. www.anvils.co.uk If I am paying, probably a US made Bubba Rhino as that gets about the biggest bang for the buck at 300 pounds+

The story of us breaking Boer anvils I think is apochryphal but let that pass. Do some forging on what is left and see how you get on. You can fix it up if you feel you want to go further. Photos of the anvil would help us to identify it and thereby advise you better. I have heard stories about "This anvil is 120 years old" before. In my experience such stories are rarely accurate. "Uncle Pieter died aged 99, this was his anvil therefore it is at least 99 years old" is not always an accurate way of ageing an anvil or anything else.

It is very humid here so rust is a permanent problem. So I paint the sides of my anvils and then just grease the working surfaces if I know I am not going to be using them for a while. I would use grease rather than WD40 for longer term preservation as I think it works better. A bit of rust just doesn't matter. I have a Brooks which rusts fairly quickly. The other 2 are a couple of US made Rhino anvils. Those seem to rust less readily. I think there is some nickle in the alloy of those so maybe that is why.

One stand I used was just an old cistern, maybe 10 gallons, packed with concrete. (I cast porter bar holes in it). That was great as the anvil was sitting on the concrete so the stand provided extra mass. No cushioning at all between them- just a snug fit. I gave that one away eventually when I got rid of my Papa size Rhino. I had to get rid of it as I had 5 good quality anvils but I still miss it sometimes, and the stand. Silicon bonding of the anvil to the stand can be a good idea. Otherwise leave it alone.

The question is who makes the most beautiful anvils, not who made them. Some modern anvils are very functional and that might make some people look on the new ones as beig "ugly" because they are made for no other reason but functuion. I actually like functional items. Is a Euro beautiful? Possibly not but a very functional design. The US made Rhinos have a horn which is a machined cone so deadly accurate. Is that as beautiful as a Brooks horn with a seductive flare? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I have just looked at the pictures. Just use it and see how you get on. Any fool can grind metal away. I have used anvils worse than that one! BTW on your original post you mentioned that you thought stainless is soft. Stainless is a generic term. Some is soft. Some is very hard. It depends on the grade, work hardening and heat treatment.

I riveted my band. Weld some rings onto it to hold hammers and tongs as well.

I see now. I has thought it was much taller and narrower. Now I have got the dimensions I am much happier. That is an ideal height. It must be the shape of the anvil that put me off. More splay would undoubtedly be better. With the box section you should be OK but I certainly wouldn't have gone any smaller!

My touchmark is the same as my avatar here- a Star of David inside an outline of an anvil. It is about 18mm wide. I have had it for about 4 years now and it is still crisp and clear. I don't put it on everything but use it quite a lot. I got it from Blackbird Custom Touchmarks. I think you would find them on Google. I don't remember how much it cost but I remember being surprised how cheap it was. They also did me a stamp with the Hebrew character "Shin" as I use that when I am making mezzuzzah covers. I think these days a manufacturer can make pretty well anything you want.

My first reaction is how high have you got that anvil? It looks too high to me unless you are very tall. I have a Buba Rhino which is about wrist height. (That is a 330 pound US anvil). Also I would then say your legs are wrong. They are far too close together. You should splay them so as to give a wider base. Otherwise it is going to be very unstable. My my smallest anvil is a 120 pound Baby Rhino. Even a small one like that has splayed legs on the stand. If you don't want to re-engineer the whole thing I would weld a couple of pieces of heavy plate under the feet. Make these much longer than the spread of the existing legs. If you drill these plates first you can then anchor them to the floor if you want once you decide where it is going to stay. You can then add a bit more stability by adding something to fill the bottom of the legs- some square stock exactly the internal dimension of the legs is best- a bit less than half the height of the legs. Failing that pack the bottom half with concrete. I haven't read right through the thread. How thick is the wall of the box section you have used?.

Funnily enough I have a setup a bit like the original. I have the full set of blackbird tools anvil stakes. (www.incandescent-iron.com)I wanted something in which to mount these so as not to take up the anvil. Obviously I don't do any heavy hammering on small stakes but for making leaves etc. they are ideal. So I got a piece of water pipe and welded it into an old wheel. The pipe is hefty stuff and I filled the wheel with concrete and steel so the whole thing is heavy enough for the purpose. On the top is a piece of 15mm plate with a square hole which suits the anvil stakes. Of course if I want I can still use either the vice or the hardie hole but rarely do. Aso I can make hardie type tools to fit the stand but again only for very light work.

Somebody comes up with that idea every couple of months. I have yet to see a success made of it. Of course here I am where they grow. The cast iron is so bad I doubt you could do it. You would melt more iron out than the volume of rod you would get applied.

I have a small craft type block- about 60 pounds I suppose. I use it quite a bit but there are tools I use more of course. The spoon type depressions are always useful. Also the larger ones for heading rivets. Small rivets get done in the bucking block I got from Blacksmiths depot. If I have a lot of rivets, though, I use the swage block. For what they cost I think they are a good investment. www.incandescent-iron.com is where I got mine.

I have an anvil here you can have for free. Just arrange to collectit. In fact you can have a choice of 2!