Timothy Miller

Wow very cool!

I often do striking with sledges on the heel and horn that would not be good for me. I am a strong proponent of anvils that don't move or work loose. This is hard enough work, you don't need jumping anvils to make your life harder.

Send it out to a professional sand blaster.

Nice its better than mine.

That was my intent other than fixing my vise, ;)

If you change that awfull profile pic I will tell you.

Its not really broke.

That is not a Russian ASO you can tell by the heel it has no taper, the Russian anvils have a taper on the heel. It may be cast, but if it was you may have serious problems once you start forging because I doubt you followed proper procedure for welding cast iron (preheat to 500F and post heat as well as the proper rod selection). Even if you did do everything you welds they might fail because cast iron is brittle. From everything I can see that was a serviceable anvil that probably could have been sold or traded for a big hunk of steel to make a proper anvil block.

Be careful you don't crack it. It may have been stressed many times and work hardned a doing it hot will insure you have no problems.

If your hammer face is bigger than your anvil then you're swinging your anvil and you should switch.

Those were commonly referred to as farmers vices they were for doing quick repairs to gear until you could get to a real smith. They look cool but they and brittle and not strongly built.

Its a cast iron VSO.

Nope I broke one

That is not a heavy duty tool it wont stand up to heavy hammering.

Do you sleep with it?

I had two anvils in the house when I met my Girlfriend. I got rid of one when she complained. Now when she says something I just tell her I met her half way.

Your vise does not have an Acme screw. It has a square thread, acme thread is a later invention meant for power transmission on machine tools. They use square thread because it puts no bursting pressure on the screw box. Screw boxes were often cast iron and would fail if a sloped thread were used this is why they used a square thread. The hole in the front jaw is supposed to be large this allows the screw to float so the vice jaws can clamp a wide ranges of sizes. The screw flops around because you don't have enough tension on the spring. It could be that the spring needs to be rebent or remade. I see at some point some one added a coil spring to assist. You need to forge a new spring http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28479-how-i-forged-a-new-spring-for-my-leg-vise/. Its a simple task really put down the mig it wont help you here.

Bushing in the handle? I think you invented something that don't exist.

Its junk I would pass save your time and money and buy a good one. If you were living at a subsistence level I would say its a workable anvil.

You can send them out for sharping to Boggs tool its about 2 bucks a file. Considering that they are $15 to $25 new for large files the math works out. Some older hand cut files and very obscure brands may be collectable. lastly if they are rusty or have chipped teeth they are a decent source of steel for edge tool making though correct heat treatment may take a few tries to get right.

The consensus is that that style of vise is 18th century. The vise mount is a later replacement probably shop made.

You ruined a good anvil to make a power hammer of questionable value. What you have done is truly strange.

4140 is the most common steel to use for dies for forging hammers. For cold work I would go with S1, S5, S7. It really depends on how much work you do and how much you want to spend on steel. In a hobby shop I would stick with 4140. Almost any kind of hardenable steel will work better than mild steel. I have had good luck with old forklift blades as a scrap source of steel for dies.

The real question is how hard do you want to crank it.

I used it today it is holding up well, It is a highly valued tool in our shop.