NamNwod

Thanks for the responses. I have been to armourarchive.org for some reading, and have also been looking into some videos and other links. The face gets used sparingly, but my worry was if that short bit of work would add extra things to be smoothed out later. The anvil will hopefully see a lot of work once I get a forge up and going. Thanks all

I mean to say I would like to attempt making some plate armor, sorry for the confusion. Something mostly for show. I have read that marring on the hammer or shaping surface can work its way into the steel while shaping it. This is where the indent concern comes in. The anvil seems to have decent rebound, but I lack referance to how it should be. Decent ring to it as well. How could I go about testing the face?

My concern was if the indents could affect the piece at all while forging. I'll only be using 18g steel sheets to start off, which seems workable enough without heat. I won't be getting into anything too complicated with it immediately.

Bought this anvil early last spring and haven't done much with it as of yet. I was wondering if I should clean it up at all or remove the rust. I plan on getting into some small knife smithing and cold forging steel plate. The top plate looks to be well used, and has a decent sized divot in it, as well as many small indents. I'm reluctant to take a grinder to it and smooth it out. Should I just run it as is? Sorry if the pictures don't show enough, I could take more if need be. Thanks for any wisdom you guys could share, i'm a complete newbie at this.