MC Hammer

And then the UPS or Fed Ex guy rolls up to the house wondering why you have a leather skirt on Looks comfy actually but I like the extra packed and sealed up factor of pants or shorts especially when I like to hold tongs between my legs sometimes when a holdfast just isn't going to work. If I worked in a kilt there would be something about a pair of tong reins down there clamping around that would make me sweat more than the heat......CRUNCH.......

I was once out looking for arrowheads in June. A gully washer thunderstorm passed through and I hustled to my favorite field. It was perfect and I was finding a lot of artifacts but then the sun came out. It got hot and humid and sunny when it was just cool and cloudy. I was finding so many things that I just kept going until I was having a hard time and realized I was overheated. It was a long walk back to the car. I was really overheated and dehydrated which put me in the ER with heart palpitations. It took 3 bags of IV before I had to pee!! I'd been drinking water too! To this day I have a mild heart condition where my heart has preventricular contractions, but it won't have an impact on my health or longevity. I'm really careful about hydration now. If I'm out and about in the woods or forging or working, I have a thermos of water with me. To this day my body cannot tolerate dehydration, heat or humidity very well. If I work out in the heat, yeah, I monitor the color of my pee and it tells me if I need more fluids. It's nothing to mess with. In the ER, my EKG was very concerning and one nurse really kept tabs on me.

Great job on the clean-up. Now oil it and it won't get rusty on you. That's a great rebound. I suspect it's got higher rebound and after you use it for a while it will polish up some and you can try it again. I bet you get 9's then, maybe not but 8's are still very good. You got a smoking deal.

JHCC is right and that guy may just have that anvil for sale a few more weeks thinking about you with cash in hand and how he really wants it out of his way. You moved him down $300, so think of it this way.......you are learning haggling experience in the 0-3 process. I'm guessing the seller overpaid for it and was hoping to double his money on it. The longer he thinks he might get stuck with the anvil the better your offer is looking. I've been there before and given in at shows before. I once had a beautiful flint knife for sale with a scrimshawed bone handle and this guy kept coming back saying all he had was $80. He really loved the knife and admired it but was well under what I was asking. I ended up letting him have it for the $80 because of his persistence, but more importantly because I saw just how much he loved it. I made that knife, but he loved it. As the maker, that meant something to me. We became good friends after that and he used to travel an hour after working all day as a farrier to attend my monthly flintknapping gatherings at my shop. He passed away this spring, and is missed a lot. I guess my point is that sometimes a seller isn't all about the money so keep that in mind when shopping for an anvil.

Lars - I had to shrink the picture from MB to KB so there is some distortion. My hardy cut-off is in correctly. So contrary to what the picture shows, I do have my hardy cut-off put in the right way. I will admit I took one picture on my website in the past with it in "backwards" because I was throwing it in there and didn't really think about it. But...it does cut both ways last time I checked If you did the repairs correctly, nobody can fault you for that. The anvil look nice. Here's my questions though.......How many years has that anvil been in use and why did none of the past smiths that used it felt they needed to redress the edges to make them sharp again? Please don't view those questions as an attack, because they are not meant to be. Most of us here come at this topic from a working anvil point of view. Sure, my German Trenton if restored back to original condition came with sharp edges, but after 125 years of use nobody who used it before me saw the advantage or necessity to resharpen the edges or redress them. That 125 years of smiths feeding their families from this anvil speaks volumes to me about how smiths in America used their anvils and more specifically the importance of not having sharp edges on their anvils. Perhaps things are different in France? We can only offer opinions on what we observe here and what clues history has provided us.

I thought the anvil was in really good shape and didn't need "fixing". Those edges were not bad at all. I would have gladly accepted that anvil into my work space just as she was. But, each owner can do what they want with their anvils. For what it's worth, I'm not super experienced but I don't see a use for sharp edges either. I do know smiths that like them that way though. Not many though.....

You can make other useful tools out of them if you never find the original use. That's what I do.

There is a Fisher farrier anvil with the horseshoe on the side. I believe there's a picture in AIA. I did a quick google search and found a few that look just like this one. If it were me, go look at it but bring that ball bearing and test it. I can see the faint line of a hard steel face on it and Fishers always were made with the look as if the face plate were an inch thick. If it's a cast of an original Fisher it will not have good rebound most likely. Ask permission to wire brush that face before testing with the ball bearing. NJAnvilman will know more if he chimes in. At $5 per pound that's pretty steep and the anvil should be nearly perfect for that price. It looks like it's in great condition, but I'm not sure it's in $5 per pound condition. That's up to you though. If you have the money and it tests good with the ball bearing there's nothing wrong with paying up or overpaying. What I hate to see is people overpaying for substandard anvils. This one looks like a great one though. Let us know how it turns out - don't be shy and feel like you are bugging us. You are just trying to find that first anvil and we've all been there. You are being careful, and I think that shows you have been reading and understanding the process. You've also been listening to those with more experience. I hope this one works out for you. I'd offer him $500 to start and then let him take you to $600. $4 per pound in your area isn't too bad for an anvil in great condition. PS, looks like the Fisher symbol should be in the middle of the horseshoe....look for that. Also, I can see 150 stamped on the foot so it does appear it is 150 lbs.

Good follow up Iron!

Yup, agree with all the others. What happens when you show up and they aren't there? Your paypal deposit is gone for sure. Other opportunities will come along.

"What is London Pattern?" "You know, horn, heel, hardy hole, pritchel hole, even you can't say no to that!" "Oh yes we can!" (for those LOTR fans on the forum)

Here I thought this was the Attorney model......... SLAG you need one of these anvils! Thanks for the info 101!! I've never heard of this anvil. Probably it has some value in the collector market. You may want to check that out with the way anvil prices are today. You may be able to sell it to a collector if it's rare and buy 2 decent anvils with the profit.

I would agree with that. I think the possibility equally exists that the ancient smith would push the London pattern aside and say "Thank you, but this old gal worked just fine for my father and my grandfather, I'll stick with it."

Clean it using a wire brush attached to an angle grinder. This cleans the rust, paint, and gunk off it but preserves that rich dark brown patina on it. Let the wire brush do the work and don't press down too hard on it. Oh and use safety glasses because those little wires fly off and stick in things. Last time I used one I had a wire stick right into my forehead. After cleaned up with the wire brush, wash it with soap & water then oil it. I used new 5w30, but any clean oil or boiled linseed oil will work. After it's all cleaned up, get yourself a ball bearing and drop it from 10 inches. You are hoping for anything over 70% which is a 7 inch return off a 10 inch drop. Don't clean the edges up or try to grind the horn so it looks "good" or "even". Work hot steel on it for a good long while before doing anything to the edges. Once you grind away good hard steel it's gone forever. You are just the current caretaker of this anvil, so think of the smiths that will come after you and the ones that came before you and used the anvil like it is to feed their families. You got a smoking deal on it so long as the face is hard and the ball bearing test shows it. Show us pictures after the clean-up and let us know how the ball bearing test went.

I second Irondragon on the wire brush. Rust and grease and oil can cause a ball bearing test to be way off. It sounds like you have a hardened steel ball bearing. Don't forget your tape measure or ruler and drop it from the 10 inch mark to make the visual easier. Looks like a good opportunity. Let us know if you go and what the outcome is.

I've been following this thread wondering if I want to jump in here or not. I've never used RR track or a Viking anvil. I did however use an ASO as a first anvil so here's my experience with it. My ASO was one of those old anvils sold by stores back in the 1900's that had a seam running down the horn and body but not on the face. The face was beat up pretty badly, but it was free to use. You can't beat free! The face would dent, but not like one of those HF anvils, so it was somewhat hardish.....at least harder than mild steel. I was able to use the hardy and pritchel hole and horn so I did get some experience understanding the London pattern and any advantages it might offer. I even made a holdfast for the pritchel hole that worked. This ASO was maybe 75 lbs soaking wet and moved around a lot even when you tried to secured it. It worked, but left me wondering how well a larger steel faced anvil would be. It wasn't until I got my Trenton that I realized the stark difference. It was like night and day. When I stepped up to the new Trenton I had some experience with the horn, hardy, and pritchel. So in that aspect the ASO was helpful. Other than that I feel the ASO really limited my endurance time because it lacked rebound and moved around a lot because it lacked weight. I was losing a lot of each hammer strike to the anvil moving and the softish face so things took longer and I got more tired making them. So, IMHO, rather it be an ASO or a RR track, or a solid chunk of hard steel, there will be disadvantages to all of them but all of them will work to move hot steel. Kind of how the short stubby handled screw driver will work, but a nicer longer handled screw driver works noticeably better. I think a decent anvil is like the longer handled screw driver, it just makes forging easier. My advice to the beginner would be to avoid ASO's, RR tracks, and improvised anvils if you can and buy even a beat-up / damaged "real" anvil with a decent face. If money is an issue, then you must decide which improvised anvil system will deliver the best results and go with it. We'll never know, but I wonder if you could travel back in time and offer a nice sized London pattern anvil to Viking or Medevil blacksmith if he would have pushed his anvil into the corner of the smithy or not? Would he have seen any really great advantage to the horn, much larger size, and the hardy/pritchel holes? We'll never know. Interesting to think about though.

That's interesting to know TP. What forging methods cause that in the shoe making process? Damage and modification in all, I really love my Trenton. 90 - 95 % rebound with 80 % at the heel. Mine has many more smiths that will use it after me I believe.

Here's an update on the temporary set-up. I got the paver job done first. Nothing fancy, just the cheapest 1x1's I could get. I invested the rest into the foundation material including compactable gravel, paver sand, drainage, and polymetric sand to finish and lock the pavers in place. In the end, I just needed an easy place to roll the forge out of the building to keep things cool and safe. After a couple of days of shifting around my workshop in the basement I was able to settle into this new temporary set-up which I'm really starting to like a lot. In the next month or so I hope to build a tong rack and a hammer rack for the portable work stand in front of the forge. I hope to be able to sheet metal the top and roll my tools to wherever I'm working. I'll also build chisel and punch holders on it so everything is in one spot. So far, so good. Now I need to get busy as I'm behind on forging projects. You should have seen the space prior to cleaning it out enough to work in.

Dillion - yes I've used these tongs sets and they are really easy to make. I prefer them because they take less time to make than the traditional methods. I think it's the cheapest way to go to get a nice set of tongs to begin with. Buying new tongs ready to use is an expensive venture and making your first set as a first project can be frustrating. I bought used antique tongs to get started with and only paid between $7 - $10 a piece, but you are very much at the mercy of the hunt and what turns up. What I like about the quick tongs is that you make them how you want them. Do yourself a favor though and make each set to be able to hold stock straight and sideways like a wolf jaw tong type set-up. This doubles the effectiveness of them and maximizes the money you invested. Do yourself a second favor and watch the videos he puts out that shows you how to make them. It's easy to twist the jaw the wrong way and wind up having to fix it. Black Bear Forge on Youtube also took these tongs and did an instructional video on them. I personally prefer the quick tongs as they have longer reins.

German Trenton anvils were imported for 15-20 years before 1898. They don't have a serial number and the weight is stamped between legs on the same side as the Trenton mark. Some American made ones were first made with the steps on the feet like the German ones. This is an opinion of mine, but I believe the ones stamped "Germany" were not as old as the ones lacking the Germany stamp. Clean it up with a wire cup brush on an angle grinder, wash it with soap & water, dry it really well, then oil it. You should be able to find the weight as you clean it up. Try not to hit the area with that large chip. Use the anvil for a while before you redress the side where the chip is to see what if anything needs to be done. I've been using my German Trenton for 2 years an am now just thinking about dressing the edges........probably won't, but I'm just saying it takes some use before you know what needs to be addressed and what should be left alone. Don't grind the face (top). For $40 you got a super smoking deal! Makes me wonder if the German Trenton's had a flaw in them. I see a lot of them really chipped in the same place. Here's what a smith long, long ago did to mine to remedy the problem or as a modification for some kind of work they were doing. Notice where the weight is stamped. Yours should be stamped in the same place.

Quite a project, I tip my hat to you for figuring it out and doing all the fabrication. Once you get that baby bolted down I think you'll be in fine shape. The great thing is that you built it so you can fix it

Don't Trenton's usually have a bell shaped concavity on the underside of the base? The exception of course being the early German Boker Trentons.

You could use more chain around that base JHCC

Yeah, the humidity is what was bad here. Our dew points are in the 70's. We are used to a few days of weather like that, but we've had a lot of hot days for an extended period of time here in NY and we just aren't used to it. TP - I bet you get tired of hearing "Sure, it's hot but it's a dry heat".

I was supposed to break ground on my forge Monday, but when I did a last minute price check on my foundation materials I realized I was short in the wallet department. I could have skipped insulating the foundation,, but just as I was thinking about that a 60 year-old guy appeared and slapped me on the back of my head. He said he was me back from the future and that I better not make that shop floor cold to work on Plan B emerged to get me by. The big problem I have is rolling our 300 lbs of anvil + stand, my portable post vise, and everything else. My garage / basement has a regular person sized door that's blocked by my scrap pile and I never used it because it just stepped out onto the lawn - easier to just open the garage door. So Plan B involved me buying concrete pavers and making a 8x5 patio just outside the door. The plan is to set up my anvil in a permanent spot by the door and just wheel the forge outside. What used to take 40 minutes will take 2 minutes to roll the forge out the door onto the patio. Prevailing winds will take the heat and gases away from the open door. Stepping in and out of the door will be a pain, but it's only temporary . The dedicated shop will have to wait until next year. That's ok, I want to do it right and not skimp just to get it built. Now before anyone thinks Plan B was easy, well, it was 97 degrees Monday and I had to dig down 6 inches by hand removing the dirt for the 8 x5 area, level and slightly slope it away from the building, compact the compactable gravel, lay the sand and the pavers. Finished it just before dinner. I've never sweat so much in my life. I spent this morning regrading the area by hand so that water would run away from the patio and cleaning things up. Now onto setting up the basement smithy.....well, I'm beat so probably that will be for another day.