Avadon

Oh Yah!! Now your cooking with gas! That is one serious piece of beam you found! Looks like it's in tip top shape as well. I might spray it with some sort of sealant and also bug protector if your gonna have it outside. Critters like to make their home in your stump.

I actually called up grizzly to ask about their ASO's because i've seen them on numerous occasions. They do not have a tool steel face, the whole anvil is cast iron, although their tech couldn't say with absolute certainty. I asked him if there is any hardness spec, any rockwell measurements, and he said they have none. This anvil is made specifically for grizzly tool. Has their logo on the side, so it's disheartening that they no so little about their own ASO anvils. Think i'll go with either a real anvil (non-ASO) or the block of steel like the brazeal brothers.

I think your going the wrong direction in your thought process tholdorimm. The heavier the anvil, the more work the anvil does with each blow, thus negating the necessity for herculean strength hammer blows. I think you will be surprised at how finesse and precision are vastly more important then strength. I can almost guarantee that your not going to have a need to hit anything hard for quite a while.

Okay let me ask you all this.. is A36 better then a cast iron ASO as far as hardness and rebound go?

I have a chili forge cayenne.. I've got good cross flow ventilation..so it should be no problem chili forge says to run that inside. The coal forge would just be too dirty inside my metalshop and really no point in bringing all that stuff inside when that was never its purpose. My intention was always to run that outside. The chunk of steel I like is 4x13x16 which is about 1/2 a cu. foot. About 244lbs. Only thing is the steel yard doesn't have a great price on it. They want $372. Granted thats free delivery, but still, that is real anvil prices now.

I guess the cool thing about A 36 is you can mill, drill, weld, grind, shape or even weld on a horn or attachments as its all the same thing. I think that is one of the nice aspects of those brothers design. It is also one of the reasons I like the gladiator as its just a giant mass of steel in the waist but doesn't compromise much in the horn or heel either. It gives you the best bang for your buck when doing armour and blades (imo). I don't need the horn outback as I have a armouring post which all my forming tools screw into.

alright, alright.. the onyx abyss is close to massachusetts lol.. @Quenchcrack.. wish I lived in Texas. The shipping would prolly rule it out. @Fe-wood.. No the Gladiator just isn't up to snuff. J/K lol No the problem is the Gladiator cannot be put on my back, taken outside, and carried up a dozen steps to the back yard which is much higher then the driveway area. Without an anvil out back my coal forge is worthless and I currently have tons of wood, and coal for it. So i'm trying to use it while the weather is great and not baking hot. I also cannot bring the coal forge inside. Way to dirty and toxic. I suspect most people run into this problem. Great coal forge outside, great anvil inside and never the twane shall meet. lol my propane forge though is coming at the end of the month to go within my shop. But I still need an anvil for outside near my coal forge, hence the hunt. It's for knives and perhaps a few general pieces.. so unless anyone knows anything in mass (i've already looked all around, and couldn't find anything) I guess i'll try to scare up that A36 block. Thanks

What do you guys think is better, or which would you rather have A cast ASO Anvil 200lb OR A 150lb Vulcan anvil OR 4"Wx15"Tx13"W 220lb Chunk of A36 What is best?

I know.. i'm still in post-padom depression after seeing that Sweedish Anvil. I really just want a giant chunk of steel. My steel yard only goes up to 3" plate. Best it seemed like I could get was a 3"thick x 8" wide x 12" T piece of A36 up on end and it would weigh 89lb. That just seems too little to me.

Is it realistic to beat G8149 200 lb. Anvil this in price in a real anvil? Just looking for something I can leave outside in the elements and beat on near my coal forge.

I'm in this same predicament. I'm hunting for something of more mass to replace my 2" piece of plate steel. Even on its end it just wouldn't be enough. Plus thats a narrow face to work on.

Do normally they just leave some meat around the base of hardy tool that the heat in the forge and then pound it down into the hardy hole while hot and that forms the shoulder right? At least that is the only thought I have on how they could create that bulge for the shoulder.

Can't you just weld the tool ontop of the shank and then, with the tool firmly tapped into place, just weld a shoulder on (a thick disk) the shaft?

For whatever its worth I made a short video showing the difference in ring between my sand filled legs and a non filled leg. http://home.comcast.net/~theonyxabyss/aa/anvil/sandlegs.avi You can see there is a fairly large difference in ring between these legs. Granted the hollow leg isn't welded up but I still believe you will be able to appreciate the difference. Crank your volume so you can really hear the difference.

How thick is the caulking bed of sikaflex do you lay down? I only scraped out about 1/16'ths coverage on the bed. More around the front face of the feet so it could fill any void or gaps. (I didn't use sikaflex myself. I actually ended up just using this stuff I got at Lowes called PL ULTIMATE Hybrid Sealant+Adhesive - with flextec technology. It says it is multisurface all weather application. It's probably a little like marine adhesive i'd bet.. but easier to remove. Marine adhesive can be really insane to remove unless you have a very smooth surface)

I didn't see these videos till just now.. Hofi's setup. Really good looking equipment as well. YouTube - hofi anvil introduction youtubeversion2

Looks good, how are you gonna mount it/hold it down?

That makes sense. I never thought about the waist having so much to do with it. That higher pitch ring that people talk about as "singing" i've always experienced on London pattern anvils, hay budden, and peter wright as that's all I've ever had access to. It's just unusual and set me off guard working with an anvil that didn't have that higher pinging or ringing sound. This is what always seemed normal to me YouTube - Jon P. Moore, Forging Knife, hammer and anvil and that is not what my Gladiator sounds like at all. There just isn't that sting in the sound. It's more like hammering on just a giant boulder of steel. There is rebound but there is no sound from the punyness of impact any human can place upon it. lol I guess i'm going to have to get used to my ears not bleeding like they do on some of my others pieces of metal I beat on. I had no idea the sound would be so different from one style of anvil to another. Perhaps mounting has a little to do with it too. People always told me metal stands were louder. I guess it depends on what anvil/metal stand and probably weight combination. I'm sure there's probably a lot of physics to it as well that are well over my head. The only anvil I could find to compare the ring of the nimba gladiator to would be Hofi's anvil. YouTube - hofi vorführung heiss teil2 youtubeversion2 You can hear there is a much deeper sound here. No high pitch ring or dancing of the anvil. When I get my new camera I can upload a youtube of the gladiator sound, but its pretty similar to this video.

Is it pretty common in the higher weight of anvils for them not to have that twangy / pingy ring to them. I used my 450# gladiator for its first time and was surprised to see that it didn't have that higher pitch ring to it. Is this because its cast? Or is it because I have so much mass below? Normally i'm use to anvils that have that sharper, and sometimes ear piercing ring. This has none of that. In fact unless I get out near the tip of the horn or the heel it doesn't seem very necessary to wear ear protection. I was hammering fairly hard on a piece of 5/8's sq rod even when it was starting to go dull red and practically no ring. Am I doing something wrong :confused: Or do some anvils just not have that higher ring in them. (as an aside, it's nice to not have that higher twang of a ring constantly going on. Most anvils i've worked on have that and you have to use a chain or a ton of magnets to drive it out) I guess what i'm asking is what should a heavier anvil normally sound like?

I know a bit about electronics and wirinig up motors and I am even fairly darn good with a soldering iron. I even once built a small hand held computer from scratch. Yet I took apart a hair dryer and there were so many wires going to so many different things I couldn't figure out what went were especially without a digital multimeter. So you know what I did hehe.. I just bought a CVS Brand Turbo 1875 Hair dryer. Turbo 1875 You can get these just about anywhere. They have a high/low switch, and they also have a Cool/Warm/Hot switch. So I just run my coal forge with this hair dryer in the low or high position on cool. It was much easier then trying to spend a day reinventing a hair dryer. I'm sure you can still get this model or its similar at CVS, Walmart, Target, or even used on craigslist for 10-15$. Easy fix.

I like Frosty's advice as well. They will probably charge you a pretty good chunk of change to have that milled and if you buy the tool it will also cost you a pretty good chunk of change. You will also decrease what mass you have in your chunk of steel. Sorta a lose/lose proposition unless you just have to have it that way. For myself I use all my forming tools and hardy's on a seperate stand setup and I never have to worry about hammering near a hot cut hardy nor having to remove it in between work. I found a nice stump I liked, used PL Industrial polyurethane adhesive and glued it to two thick boards. Glued all that to 4x4's (lincoln log style). Drilled some holes for a bunch of rebar. Then I sheeted the box and poured crack resistant concrete in. I think I did this all in a day or two. Then I attached some wheels. The thing is very heavy, but I can rock it back on my own onto the wheels so I can place it where I want. Sometimes I like it just behind or to the side of my anvil. Anything I can weld to a pipe or pipe cap I can use. I even found some really thick forged steel nipples (pipe) from mcmaster carr (3/16's I think). Ignore the pipe that is in the picture, normally I only use a little 6" piece because i'm working rather low. A pipe wrench I always keep nearby I can use to tighten or untighten each item very quickly. Most of the time though all you need is hand tight because the threads hold it so well. I've also seen guys make a similar mobile base with a piece of square steel tubing welded to heavy plate to accept their hardys. You can really come up with something great if you put a little time and thought into it. One of the nice things about this setup is I can wheel it outsideor anywhere I want with ease. It makes doing any sheet metal project much easier. Oh I also took a piece of leaf spring and heated it and clamped it around the stump to stop it from splitting and cracking. A few cracks formed over the years, but I just inject them with PL and i'm back up and running. :cool:

You can always weld in some bracing, steel bar like i did or what not. Then use some fasteners to cramp the anvil into position. Works incredibly well. Far, far stronger then any adhesive could every provide. I'd be surprised if a sherman tank could rip my anvil from my base. There is probably 30-40,000psi worth of fasteners locking it in there lol. I've gotta disagree with the sand/lead comment. The 50# bag of sand i used cost me $2.50 and it filled up all three of my 5x3x.025" legs as well as the cross members that hold them braced. So this is a very cheap proposition. Although I only generated an extra 50# worth of weight to my setup I don't think it hurts to have anything in the legs. Anything that adds mass and absorbs force will dissipate or absorb the applied forces you are creating. I tried my anvil for its first use on the stand I made today and was surprised that there really isn't much ring at all to it. Must just be too much mass to produce much of a ring because I don't feel like I need hearing protection even when I was really beating on a 5/8's sq rod. It's surprisingly quiet. Now I have a steel block I use outside with my coal forge. It's ring or rather "WHACK" sound is so LOUD that I think it could ring the fillings out of my neighbors teeth. It sits on a large log. What a crazy difference in these two setups lol. I'm sure there is a lot to the anvil itself as well as the stand as to what acoustics or harmonics you will recieve when working. Applied force, shape, mass, ambient air, heat, etc i'd imagine are all of things that play into what kind of "ring" or lack thereof you will recieve. I'd say if you got the lead go for it. Lead is trading at about .82c a lb. 1lb ingots will probably cost you closer to $1.25-1.50. If you can find billets you can prolly cut that down a bit. As big as my legs were I only used about 1/2-3/4 cubic foot. So you probably need less lead then you think. If it were me I would do it. Certainly is only going to help your situation. But I wouldn't run out and buy lead that I didn't have as you may spend more on the lead then you did if you just bought solid steel legs. hehe.

You will need a HSS Broach bit that does this.. You have to use it in a press or a lathe. It works like a cam motion. It's prolly best to take your anvil to a machinist and have them drill it for you on one of their machines. OR (Simple way) Other things you can do are just get a piece of thick wall sq tubing .25" or 3/16's and weld that to a horizontal piece of plate (something also meaty like 1/2") and then mount that on a stump or something secure. Then you can just mimic the hardy hole with the tubing and have a separate place for using all your hardy tools.

Keep us posted on the lead thing. Seems like that is definitely something to do before you weld feet on. I don't think there is any way I could pour lead in my stand now. A cubic foot of lead weighs about 708 pounds. Water (for reference) only weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot. Dry sand weighs about 100 lbs. per cubic foot. So your going to get some considerable weight out of that. But of course all that weight really comes down to how anchored your anvil is to that base. Take some pics of the pouring/progress. Should be cool to see. The Onyx Abyss is north of the Pit of Despair and south by southwest from the Bog of Eternal Stench. It's a rather small and dark spot. If your not leery you may fall right in. ;)

Do you have to pour that in one shot? Or can you pour it section by section? I would just be careful, lead has nasty vapors and one drop can give a really evil looking burn. Sand is a lot easier to remove ;-) as well, but probably also has a greater degree of dampening and vibration reduction then the lead would offer. But as you said the lead is heavier. I suppose if someone just wants weight you could add anything, even concrete. Just wear all your protective fear if you do the lead. I've only done a little smelting of lead pieces for a chess set I once made. Worked out quite well. You could also weld some feet with some holes for bolting it down. Ps.. I like that ring you made around the anvili for holding tongs and hammers. I may borrow that concept from yah.