MC Hammer

Yeah the dealer thing does grind my grits. I was at a tax auction for the property next to mine. My wife and I saved every scrap we could to go to the auction and own that nice piece of woods. Sitting in the same row were two idiots discussing how they could buy the property, take the timber out and get the gravel out of it then let it go back up for taxes again. All they cared about was greed and making money off it. I'm all for capitalism, but when greed drives you it changes you. Funny end to the story was that I got outbid at auction by a late comer. I set my price and stopped bidding when it went over. I waited for the guy to exit the auction and introduced myself to him. Turns out we went to the same high school back in the day and I told him to park anytime in my driveway to have access to his land. 7 months later he came to me wanting to sell. He'd even built a cabin on the property. Sometimes there is a happy ending. The same thing can happen with anvils. Nope, not selling.........2 hour trip that turns out to be a bust........then one day one of those efforts pays off when the guy not selling decides to call you or the 2 hour trip guy says that he just found another anvil. Sometimes you just have to wait out your impatience.

When I got my first anvil I was so happy and sent pictures of it to my friend who was a farrier. He said "Not bad, but you need to take that to a machine shop and get the surface milled flat and the edges squared up." Luckily, I'd been reading everything I could on anvils including everything here and I knew better. My first anvil is the German Trenton I own still and is my main anvil. Think of the history I would have ruined on the advice of someone I thought knew a great deal on the subject. I think today there's the mindset that when you start smithing you need perfect tools. This is how an anvil should look pervades the thoughts of the newbie smith. Like Jennifer touched on, we've forgotten how to make do with used things. Many things are ruined this way. Yes, I agree, you paid for a tool and it's yours but how short sighted. How many smiths fed their families off my German Trenton? They got that thing with all its blemishes and accepted them as part of it being a used tool then they got to work to feed their families. How arrogant would I be to turn my nose up at the slight sway and other minor issues? I'd say very arrogant if I'd decided to make it "perfect" when for 130 years that anvil serviced the needs of others yet somehow it reaches me and it's not good enough. I'm just the most recent caretaker of that anvil and it's my duty to pass it on to someone someday with all my history of use.

I think waiting makes it all the sweeter. When it finally does come your way you appreciate it all the more. I know a guy that was interesting in smithing and he was casually looking for an anvil. Within a few weeks he picked up two at barn sales, but you know what he's not even using them and I think he just doesn't appreciate what he found so easily. Mine took over a year to find and then there's all the work of cleaning it up and getting it on a stump. I sure appreciate that anvil. I doubt I would have if someone had just given it to me randomly.

leave the stand as big as it is. You'll find it's handle to rest tools on it. You can always move the anvil to one side of it and use the other side to hold hardy tools and things. Great buy on the anvil. Oh, and Chris............a guy I know just picked up 2 anvils at garage sales for $50 each. A nice Sweedish Kohlswa and a Hay Budden. Both in the 120 # range. He's not sure he wants to get into blacksmithing...............took me a year to find my first anvil.

Good joke, had me going for a second or two! My thinking was "Man this guy is going to get a talking to........" Great job on the clean-up. That anvil should serve you well even though it's missing the bottom half. I hope it was half price!

Prices for swage blocks are high right now because of the whole Forged In Fire craze. There really are two markets for blacksmithing tools: #1 is the collector market. These people look at blacksmithing equipment as something to be collected, stored, displayed, and curated as a historical item for occasional use only in demos and such. #2 is the blacksmith buyers. We buy tools to put them back to work. We look at tools in terms of usability. We appreciate the historical value, but we really just want to put the tools to work in our shop. We pay much less usually because we just don't participate in this $12 a pound pricing ridiculousness. You'll need to decide who you want to sell it to if that's what you decide to do. So, you can get big bucks for a great swage block. This is very much dictated by the demand though. I tried to explain this to a picker I know that had a very large anvil he found. I told him sometimes size works against you. Who wants to ship a 300# or 400# anvil or swage block? So that limits you to pick-up buyers only. We've been know to drive hours to pick such stuff up, but moving heavy stuff requires the right vehicle and equipment. You can't just swing by in your Dodge Omni and throw it in the hatch back. Don't base your asking price on ebay or craigslist but talk with blacksmiths near you and put a fair price on it if you desire to sell it. I've seen swage blocks like yours get $3 a pound easily and even more if things get crazy.

The tong starter sets are a great way to save money forging your own tongs. I've bought them and they work great. I definitely suggest drilling the hole for the rivet after you've forged out your tongs. Watch some videos on tong making so you don't totally smoosh out the other end of the rivet when you put it in. Since you haven't indicated that budget is an issue, why not buy a forge? You won't be happy with a brake drum forge from what I hear. Propane forges can be had for less than $500 - hook them up and start forging. If you are married to using coal, those can be built better using the brake drum or even a rotor as the firepot of a much larger forge. You can definitely make a forge cheaper than buying one, but there's always that period of time when you are fudging with getting it to work right.

West also made anvils with the inverted triangle logo as well. The Columbian anvils I've seen have a "C" in the inverted triangle so that's also a possibility. Both are American made cast steel anvils with hard faces. According to Postman in AIA (Anvils in America) Columbian was founded around 1890 and started making anvils somewhere in the 1903 - 1904 period. They may have been the first cast steel anvil makers in America. They used good quality tool steel for their anvils from what I know because they were cast from tool steel. Dating your anvil is tricky but a safe guess would be early 1900's like before the 1920's possibly.

Why even put firm on every one of those? We get it dude, you want a ridiculous price for every anvil you have The problem I have isn't with the guys selling anvils at such high prices, it's with the newer guys willing to pay them. The market takes care of its self when people pay reasonable prices for things and don't for things overpriced. It feeds this kind of greed. I've said it a number of times....when FIF and other shows on forging run their course, there will be a glut of blacksmithing tools out there and the price will drop dramatically. Guys like this guy will loose their shirt when they have 18 anvils to move and the going rate is 1/3 of what he's asking now.

Now that you have your beautiful new anvil, multiple deals on great old anvils will start popping up I like your thinking about being the first smith to use that anvil. You are the first caretaker of it. I often wish I knew the history behind my anvils. They could easily have 5 or 6 past smiths that owned them or just one.

I toyed with a lot of ideas including just mounting a piece of old rusty sheet metal on the wall. I eliminated white boards because hot metal and plastic don't mix. When I was going to build a new shop I thought about chalk board paint on a piece of the wall. An easel is a good idea, but I don't like things I could bump into and knock over due to having a small shop space. I think the main motivator was just to do something functional and unique. I didn't make the hinge because I had just one of them hanging around so I thought I'd just use it up. Works for me really well and I think that's really the important factor. I love to see members on here personalizing their shops for what works great for them.

Wow, she looks beautiful all cleaned up.

Nice find and a great clean-up job on it!

Well done. I'm glad you finally found a decent anvil. Like others have said, the casters are going to cause you problems. As you know, the weight and each blow is carried through you anvil to the anvil stand down to the floor. In your case, the bearings and weak wheel supports are going to be taking all that energy. I would also think it might walk with you while forging. With that minor criticism, I commend you for being patient and finding a great anvil. Your stand looks very nice as well. Now....it's hammer time!

I really love that I can move it against the wall and use the other side of it too. Many times with my gas forge I have two projects going on at the same time so I can have two different sketches. I'm glad you used to do that with your students Thomas because it's an acquired skill to plan out something and make it to those specs. Often blacksmithing can morph into a fluid activity where you start making one thing and end up with something nothing like it. I've been there, but I find planning out tools and measurements with the chalk board makes me work more efficiently.

We all have metal that we can draw on to come up with designs, but like me probably most of you have to turn away from the anvil to look at or compare what you are forging to the sketch on the metal table or scrap metal. This to me seemed inefficient and it got to be annoying so I came up with something better. I saw these old antique chalk boards for sale that had real slate for the writing surface which is handy for when you get something hot and too close to it. I could have made some hooks and hung it from the ceiling, but I wanted it out of the way when it wasn't in use and I wanted to be able to use both sides so I put mine on an arm. It swings out of the way when not in use and it swings out right in front of my anvil but at a safe distance. Problem solved!!

Nice job on the clean-up! The rebound test looks like it returns nearly 100% Now you don't need another anvil for the rest of your life

The sway in that anvil is pretty good. Sway is caused by the wrought iron below the steel plate being moved. A lot of work was done on that anvil but if the ball bearing test proves that it has great rebound, it shouldn't hurt you to use it. A few smiths have fed their families with that anvil and it worked fine with them sway and all. It's a great starter anvil. If it were to be milled you would loose all the hardened steel plate on the high areas and would be forging on wrought iron which is a very, very bad thing. Milling this anvil will ruin it and all the blacksmiths before you will turn over in their graves My anvil has very slight sway and nowhere near as bad as yours and I've had no problems forging on it. I made a flatter station with a block of steel that is completely flat that I use when I need a flat surface to forge on which isn't that often really. I mostly use it in the finishing stages with a raw hide mallet.

No need to secure that to anything! It ain't moving anytime soon. Fisher for sure. That horn looks like it's just waiting for some youngster whose head is about that height to ram into.

That's what I've heard too on all accounts. I still watch the show because, well it's bladesmithing/blacksmithing and there's nothing to watch on this subject. My favorite part of the show is seeing the finalists' home forges. Seeing this is what makes me content to have what I have because there are many on that show that don't have a lot. I like to see the smiths that don't have a lot do as well or better than the smiths that have a full shop. I think this always drives home the point that is made on this forum a lot........you don't need all the special tools to do well at forging something. With that said, I do think having an London style anvil, several decent pair of tongs, and some decent hammers is vital when you start out. How much you spend and how you get that initial equipment is up to the newbie. All my hammers, with the exception of the 2 HF hammers I bought when I started, are ones I bought cheap at junk stores and on Ebay. My tongs I got for under $10 each or I made them. Just my personal belief......if you are serious about forging the anvil and forge are your two major investments. Do them as cheaply as you can and you won't have a ton invested. Heck, I'm still making tools I need but it feels great to make them vs. buying them new or even buying them used. Sorry, got off topic

I'd use just the wire cup brush. Flap disks can remove metal and from the looks of your anvil, it doesn't need any metal removed at all. The only time I've used a flap disk on an anvil was when the face had been really marked up. The flap disk knocked the marks down to an acceptable range. Yeah, a free Hay Budden, you really got a huge blessing.

I have a pair of pick-up tongs that I made a clip for the reins so that anything too short for comfort can be held securely. The punches I've made are always in the 8 inch plus range. I also octagon the body of them so they don't roll all over the place. I posted this before, but I also put them on a magnetic arm that swings out from the wall and to the left of my anvil so I can just reach up and grab or replace punches as needed. In the picture below you can see my pick-up tongs with a smaller length punch in it and clipped at the reins. Great story on the pick-up tongs, I found them in a box of junk at my favorite junk shop. I asked the owner what he wanted for them and he said he didn't know what they were so I picked them up for $2!

Yes Chris, all true but my forge is wheeled outside so my quench tank will be right near it. My blacksmith shop is out of my basement garage so there is no way I'll be forging inside. It could be done, but it's so easy to wheel the forge outside and take one step from the forge to the anvil inside the shop. It always puzzles me why the guys of FIF have so many flame-outs. I've quenched things in oil before and yeah, you just shove it in there fast and I just keep moving it up and down until it's fully quenched. I've never had a flame-out but then again I've not been making 12 inch knife blades either.

I like the idea of a spill pan. I'll have to see what I can come up with. Grease and oil fires are one of the few fires that make me nervous. They go from nothing to terrible in seconds. It's why I'll be wheeling it outside to quench. I shouldn't have a problem with a bad fire, but accidents can and do happen.

That's the advantage of the non veggie oils is that they don't go bad. Their performance can dip over time if you use it a lot, but let's face it you'd have to be a full-time blade maker to worry about that. It's an investment in getting the best oil. I'll have to check with a few of the car dealership garages I know and see if they have any lids.