Broomhead

I bid on an anvil at a local online auction sight. It looked like a decent one, I could tell it needed some TLC and a lot of work. I didn't know the weight but judging from the size of the other items in the pictures I could tell it was a good sized one. I was hoping it would be at least a 100lbs'er. I bid up to $270, but won at $260. With a 10% buyer's fee it ended being $286 total. Well, I was very surprised by what I found. I put it on the bathroom scale when I got home with it and it weighed out at 152lbs (the hundred weight marks say it was 155lbs originally)! I was happy by that point. Then I got to looking at it a little closer, turns out its a Peter Wright! Ecstatic! It does need work, more than I thought actually, but the rebound is great and it rings like a xxxxxxx bell. The edges are pretty torn up, one side has a chunk broken off and another piece cracked. The face is mostly smooth with a few pits, but its flat as a granite slab, no swayback. The horn and face both have what looks like a bit welding slag on them, but a grinder will take care of that quickly. I hit it with a cupped wire wheel on my angle grinder and cleaned it up, which it did pretty nicely. I'll hit it with a straight wheel later and see if it'll clean up more. I also popped that socket out quite easily by heating it up nice and hot and beating the xxxx out of it from the bottom. I haven't found a date on it anywhere, but there is a number 3 stamped on one of the legs. I did find some markings that I thought might be a date stamp, the middle character looks like a 4, but there are what appear to be two 1s on either side of it, I highly doubt its a circa 1141 or 1411. The folks on a couple Facebook blacksmithing groups have guesstimated it to be roughly pre-1850's. One gentleman speculated that it looked like a multi-piece anvil that PW stopped making in the 1850's. Oh, time for the math, $286 / 152# = $1.88 per pound! That's a heck of a deal around here. People want $400-$800 for no-name anvils, weighing less, and sometimes in worse shape. Questions, A. What's your guess on the age? B. Can you give me ballpark value? 3. The feet are a little steeper than I usually see, what's the best way to anchor one like this? Well here are the gratuitous pictures, there are a lot of them, just to warn you.

The 1" pipe nipple and 1.5" flare is impressive, isn't it? At the suggestion of Frosty, I used a 1.25"x1.25"x1" tee with his Tee Burner design. That baby cranks at 8psi, I haven't tried it any higher though. I'm also in the middle of my forge build, so I haven't tried it in there yet either.

Alright...I give...What am I doing wrong? I have two different types of printouts, one from a laser printer and one from a laser copier, both of which are from Staples. Neither one is transferring to my metal, period. I have tried acetone (lots of it), a hot iron (highest setting), a large, wide tipped soldering iron (hotter than the iron), and a micro butane torch (held at a distance of ~1-2"). I have tried using both paper towels and a cotton shirt with the acetone, both of which I rubbed very hard with. I also tried using the smooth, butt end of an aluminum bodied Exacto knife. The soldering iron and torch both browned the paper, but didn't burn it because I moved them around evenly. Neither of them even affected the toner on the paper. The acetone partially erased the toner from the paper and transferred something black to the metal, but it wiped right off, and it wasn't even a light version of my template. So...What is going on? Why won't it transfer? What should I do differently?

I found 1", 8lb density ceramic blanket at a local ceramics supply shop, they had it listed under "Raku Kiln Equipment". It was $3.50 per square foot, so 7 bucks per 2sqft, but no shipping. They also had Zircopax (zirconium flour) and EPK (kaolin/porcelain) clay powder for a kiln wash that was suggested by Frosty.

That would be awesome Robert! I'll definitely hit you up sometime soon when I have a little more free time. Thanks!

Awesome. I just worked up some templates last night to get printed, so I will definitely be trying this. I was approached by the AACB editor to write an article on etching. I don't have a vast knowledge of the subject, so I was planning on doing it from the aspect of having a shoe-string budget and making your own equipment. Shoe-string budgets are something I am very familiar with. This will fit in perfectly.

I shall, I shall.

Does the ATF/laquer thinner mix need to be mixed as needed or can you mix it ahead of time and store it?

Will it resist electro-etching with salt water? I imagine if it did then you'd have to be careful not to overheat the area.

What size mig tip do you need? I've got extras in both .035 and .045. They have different thread pitches from each other, but I'd be glad to throw a couple of each in an envelope if you'd like. Just PM me if you're interested.

It works great, not as good as a real anvil, but great nonetheless. Nice rebound and quiet. Its a pretty small working surface but it helps with hammer control and accuracy. It weighs a ton, lots of mass in there. Now mine is not just quickrete, I have the RR plate structure inside the quickrete.

As far as what steel to use, don't use mild steel from some place like Lowes or Home Depot. Use a mid- to high-carbon steel and temper the edge harder than the head, make that springier. Use the better steel so you will have a usable, working piece in the event the axe turns out satisfactorily.

Been there, done that. It was my first knife, back before I had any knowledge of knifemaking, and I was excited with how it turned out. It looked really good, nice design, great handle shape, even made a sheath for it. It sharpened up great the first time, and a few days later, and a few days after that... I'm sure you get the point. Lawn mower, bush hog, and other landscaping blades are meant to be tough but still bend/deform when they hit something hard. If they were made of knife quality steel, they would most likely shatter when you hit a rock. Just because a piece of metal seems strong, tough, handles a heavy load, etc, doesn't mean it's good for a knife. As was said, use it for tooling or even as a bolster material, with some type of patina/bluing/coating/acid etch to help protect against rust.

That is really cool! I like that a lot. Would it be big enough to set a bowl on, or level enough to put a round sheet of glass on to make a small table?