GMikeH

Yeah after more looking around at cast anvils I started to notice some did have the same appearance around the waist so enough conversing over this pile of junk. hahaha To be honest I heard what I needed to hear as I do not need another anvil anyhow.

I agree, so much tells me cast and clearly cast no name as I have found not a single anvil that shares its shape. It kind of looks like a taller vulcan without any of the casting marks or even parting lines. I guess that areas that looks like it was forge welded could just be the result of horrible casting. I have a Wilkinson and Brooks anvil so I am not anvil poor I just figured if this is a 200lb decent anvil I may add it to my collection. Oh man, Your right that is the hardy hole. hahahaha My eyes were playing ticks on me. duh

I could agree with you but what about the weld line around the waist? Also I see not a single raised marking on the anvil and as far as the chipping is that chipping or corrosion? I have a Wilkinson anvil that has similar edges and its not a cast iron anvil. The major cast iron anvils such as fisher and Vulcan do not share the same shape as this anvil although there are some similarities. I think the vulcan is closest in shape but I have not seen a single vulcan with such a long waist as this anvil has. Maybe this is some cheap cast iron anvil, maybe even a harbor freight junk but The biggest question I have is why does the waist of the anvil clearly have what looks to be a weld line and not a casting line in my opinion? Also, would a cast iron anvil have a handling hole in the waist? Maybe some did but looking around at fishers and vulcans I did not see any such holes in the waist.

This anvil belongs to a friend of a friend and only thing I know about it is that it weighs around 200lbs. I have looked around for an anvil that looks similar but I have not found anything that leads me to who the maker may possibly be. I will try to go look at it but its a few hours away. Any ideas? It looks to be a top forged onto a base right?

Well, I had been lurking on here for it seems like years. I have collected a few anvils, hammers, and tongs in the time being but never built a forge due to uncertainty on which route to go and of course getting side tracked with other project. Well i finally built a burning a few weeks ago and to my surprise it works pretty dang well but I did not have a forge to put the burner in. I have once again stalled due to over researching to the point I was not sure what method to use in building my forge. I am border line perfectionist and i will research something to death. Anyhow, I bought a couple large kilns a while back in hopes in using the firebrick and coils to make a small aluminum melting furnace but that too had stalled but, I did put some of the fire bricks to use. I just stacked the bricks to make a little forge and I must say this little setup does impress me for being just hacked together for now. I have no idea what temp these fire brick are rated at but I have enough from those kilns to put this make shift forge together numerous times if the bricks starts to crumble too bad. So now I have no excuses, I have an anvil, hammers, and now a forge to heat some steel in. So yesterday i got a wild hair and figured I am going to the local salvage yard to see what all they had I may be interested in. I ended up getting about 200lbs of coil springs in various sizes, a pair of leaf springs and also a semi axle shaft. That was my first trip through the salvage yard but by far the lightest. I ended up talking the yard owner into selling me a couple HUGE forklift tines. One is 6" wide x 2.5" thick and the other is 4" wide by 2.5" thick. The pair came to just over 500lbs and yes today I am sore from the tugging and lifting of those forks out of the junk pile by hand. I had to go get one of the employees to help me load the big tine as I just not eat enough Wheaties to get it loaded by myself. Now Not only did I have the anvil, hammers, and forge but now I had a huge pile of various steel to cut up and start hammering on. This is my first real forging which started as a .5" coil spring. I must say I was impressed with just how little the steel moves under the hammer. I had really never forged anything of this size so it took me a bit to start seeing how to get the metal to move easier. I do think possibly I need a wee bit more heat in my forge as well but overall hamming out this knife wasn't too bad for my first one. I know the next one will go much faster. You will notice the tang area I did not flatten out as I honestly did not expect to get a decent shaped bade at first but, it started shaping up. I hammered in the bevels and tried to get the blade as close to the final shape as possible. I ended up just using a file to fine tune the profile and honestly I am almost afraid to start grinding on it on my belt sander (belt grinder build is next on my list). So after the file work on the profile I discovered a slight bend in the blade edge but the spine is nice and straight. I also thought maybe I should throw it back in the forge and hammer the tang out for a full tang and i could fix that very slight bend in the edge of the blade. I think if i was grinding the blade down completely the bend would grind out but I want to leave the rough scale texture on as much of the blade as possible. Anyhow, About an hour total forging and filing for my first time and I was already looking at my pile of steel thinking of how much propane I am going to be burning. I am sure there is plenty to critique so have at it. I think a little more time with the hammer and hot steel will sure lead to knowing how things move and in what direction which will result in a much nicer product and I have 700lbs ($46) in steel to practice on. After some file work on the profile Raw forged blade Yep, those forks are solid, haha I figured I would share a picture of my anvil and my temporary forge.

I like that. "Alice in chains"

Got my Brooks all chained down and WOW the ring is reduced by a huge amount now. This thing used to ring so dang loud now its very much tolerable.

Yep, it has a massive Hardy hole.

I have the exact same anvil which I just built a stand for last night. I still have to add some strapping to hold the anvil down and some hammer racks but I can get to hammering on things as it sits.

My John Brooks sitting on a freshly built stand. Next I will fab up a hammer rack and add some kind of strapping to hold the anvil down.

Im going to pass on the Brooks i guess. I tried one more time to talk him down but he is set on his price so I am going to be content with this Wilkinson and focus on getting all the other things I need. Tongs are not going to be an issue at the moment although I may need to acquire a few other types later down the road. I did buy a hammer which is just a 2.5 cross peen made by vaughan. I am not hammer pro but it seems nice and I am sure it will work just fine starting out. What I need is a forge and I need to make my mind up on if I am going to build a gas or coal forge. I like the idea of just using propane but open to coal as well.

Twisted, I like that a lot an I totally agree. I need to build a forge which I am researching now. I have a good hammer but would like a few others in various sizes so my daughter and I both will have something to swing at some red metal. I already have a good many tongs which I aquired years ago. I recall many timing having to move that heavy bucket of tongs out of the way and thought "will I ever even use these tools" hahaha Marc1, i agree with you as well. I think the appeal of the Brooks is the nice clean edges and that perfectly flat top but, my Wilkinson is pretty dang flat and if i need a shape edge I will make a hardy tool to help with that. I kind of look forward to making tools more so than anything else as I have some cool ideas which I am going to explore.

Not sure why but Anvilfire never seems to work for me. I have clicked on a lot of links to that site and the page never loads.

Would you say the brooks is worth $500? I mean anvil prices are mostly outrageous but with the steal i got on the Wilkinson it would almost be like having two anvils for $500. I honestly need to be collecting some tooling but I saw this anvil and it caught my attention. I have always wanted to get into forging and my daughter has been showing interest at just 12 years old so I might as well get setup to do some forging and enjoy the time with my daughter making whatever we end up making.

Out of these two anvils which would you rather work on? First is the anvil I have now which I just purchased last week. Its a 120lb Wilkinson in pretty dang good shape. This anvil was found and purchased for near nothing but its age is condition kind of make me want to just have this as a non working anvil. Second anvil is a nice looking John Brooks which weighs in at 140lbs. The face looks nice and flat and the edges are still crisp. Problem is this anvil is not where I can personally look at it although the Owner claims it has great rebound and of course that loud ring of a cast steel anvil. I can purchase this anvil for about $500 shipped. First off would you pay that for this anvil? Any known issues with these anvils? I had read that they are among the high quality cast steel anvils that are available. Here are some pictures of my Wilkinson and the John Brooks i was looking at.