Bob McRee said:
Bob is right. It is very difficult to maintain good quality on products made in China unless you can set up a quality assurance system at the factory. I did find a reliable manufacturer for my anvil stakes there, who uses a very sophisticated lost wax process to cast steel. But anvils are another story. I wasn't able to QC the anvils at the foundry in China, and ended up losing money because I had to reject some of the anvils that arrived here. Quality guarantees from the factory don't mean much when shipping costs as much as the product.
So early in 2011 I moved the anvil manufacturing to a foundry just a quarter mile from my shop in Spokane, where the quality is perfect and if there ever were a problem I could just have them melt down a reject and re-cast it. These folks fully understand metallurgy and my specifications for the alloy, heat treating and finishing. It costs a bit more to get the anvils made here, even when shipping is taken into account, but this way I can actually oversee production and ensure that every one of the anvils meets my quality specs.
By the way, Rhino anvils are made from a white chrome steel widely used in making the liner plates for rock crushers. The alloy is designed to be hard, tough and wear resistant. It's an air-quenched steel, so heat treating basically consists of a few days of letting it cool to room temperature after casting, then raising it to tempering heat in an oven and letting it cool again. As a result, the anvil is uniformly hard (HRC 52) throughout.