paintedshrubbery

Thank you everyone for the encouragement and suggestions. Sometimes I get too caught up in having things just right that I forget about good ol' fashioned ingenuity. I think I'll dedicate some time this week for making some hardy tools.

IronDragon - I think that's what I'll do for now. Thomas - It's about 140#, but I don't know where that falls in the weight range for anvils of this period. Just from lurking, heavy smithing seems to be pretty subjective. As far as trading it out, the guy I got it from said he would take it back at any time and refund how much I paid to go against buying a different anvil from him. I'd just have to pay the difference. So that might be in my future at some point. I'll look into your suggestion too and see which path yields better results. Marcus - Sounds like a plan. From a beginner's standpoint, it serves admirably, but from the little I've done trying to make some tongs, I can already tell that I would like some edges that were a lot less rounded, and a horn that was more rounded. Also, I don't know if it's hammer control I'm lacking or an effect from the sway, but it seems kinda hard to get a solid hit on it, like it's hard to get the metal laying on the anvil face in such a way that it is fully supported and doesn't bounce around when I hit it.

I acquired this anvil several years ago, and am just now getting around to doing something with it. The guy I got it from said it was a colonial anvil. It's kinda ugly, but was the best and heaviest I could find/afford at the time. It weighs about 140#. I think the rebound is pretty good. I let a 3# hammer swing down from 10 inches and it bounced back up to around 7 inches, and it rings when it gets hit. So,whatcha think? Keep it or just keep it for now?