MC Hammer

It looks to me like the horn flat lines up with the surface of the anvil face which tells me it was definitely machined. They could get the anvil face to sit flat due to the horn being slightly raised up so it had to be ground down. Based on your pictures it looks like at least half of the face plate is gone after it was ground at some point. It should still work fine, but yes test the rebound. I would give her an easy life with no sledge hammering. Let's say I'm right and half the face plate has been ground off, you still have half the life left in her and she should serve you for the rest of your days and then some with a few other smiths. Whenever I see a face that is that pristine, it's always a red flag to me. We've all seen anvils that so little or no service that look like that, but they are getting harder and harder to find. The odds mostly tip in the direction of a machined anvil if the face looks that nice.

Are those tongs lining the wall?

Nice job. Rest the shoulder.

Hopefully this will all work out for you Ted. Long-term will be the key. Each year you should report how it is holding up. If it's doing well, then the naysayers should see that and if it's developing cracks and problems, you should show that as well. What you are doing really is an experiment and the other half of that is honestly reporting what you find over many years. You may be onto something or it may be a complete failure in 5 years. Nobody can tell which it will be at this point. I'm hoping your design works well over the long haul, but I"ll keep my wooden stump that's worked well for me. I think folks can miss that aspect, Your concrete stand might work best for you but not for others just as my plain old wooden stump might not work for you.

Nice job, I really like it. Certainly doesn't look like your first axe out of damascus.

Please don't forge inside. We want to see you live to forge good things for many years to come. I'm kinda a freak about it. My gas forge is rolled outside always and I have a CO detector inside my shop just in case the wind shifts and it might have a chance of blowing combustion gases in the door to my shop. CO will kill you before your brain can fully comprehend something is wrong. Don't mess with it. If it's too cold to forge outside, work on tools and look for tools in junk / antique shops to get your forging fix. I had to do that the first 2 years I forged because everything needed to be rolled outside.

That's too bad. I really despise thieves. They don't want to work hard and buy stuff like the rest of us. I spend a number of years catching shoplifters and can tell you that if they used all that brain energy toward finding employment, they'd be millionaires instead of deadbeats sitting in the back of a police car. Some of these characters were some of the craftiest people I've ever seen.

Gee, I thought that etch looked pretty good. I've always wanted to try to make an etcher but it's one of those projects I've put off.

I was driving through a little town on my way home from getting my vehicle repaired and out of the corner of my eye I saw the word anvil so I looked and there on a sign it said "Stolen Blacksmith Anvil, Offering $100 reward". Being at a stop sign I quickly looked around and didn't see a blacksmith shop but did notice the person had little pieced of antique farm implements displayed on their lawn. Someone must has walked right off with the anvil. All the times I've driven past there and never noticed and anvil in the lawn. This just serves to caution us that there are bad people out there looking for anvils just sitting around waiting to be ripped off. Prices are just too crazy high to risk having your anvils sitting out in plain sight anymore unless it weights a good 300 or 400 pounds.

Welcome Scott! Great anvil

Nice anvil acquisition

Great information. I've learned a lot. I've always wanted a set so if anyone has one they are wanting to sell send me a PM.

Ted I hadn't thought about the heat conducting aspects of a stone anvil. That's a good point. I work a lot of hard stone into axes, celts, and gouges to sell along with my flint points and things so I have the equipment to work hard stone. If I get the opportunity to get a large enough piece I may just experiment with it.

I like your thinking Frosty !

Glad you checked Teh! My anvil has sway (dip) in the sweet spot area toward the horn. It's never been a problem for forging and yes it does work well to straighten things out. I got a scrap piece of steel that was perfectly flat that I use when I need such a surface. I mounted it on a post. A couple of forged clips and a silicone bed and I was in business. I use this every time I forge because it's my flatter station. There are good ways around not having a flat anvil.

Too low or too high JHCC?

It would be interesting indeed if someone made a granite anvil stand and could report back. I am betting it would work also. We know it wouldn't split or crack. Again though, why didn't the blacksmiths of old ever use such anvil stands? It could be simply because wood was more plentiful and easier to shape. After all, who'd want tug and tow a large granite builder and chisel it to shape / flatten the top? JHCC - yup you are right, mortared stone and concrete are different. I actually hope Ted's experiment works well. It would open up a 3rd choice for blacksmiths looking for that sort of thing. I hope Ted keeps this thread alive with maybe a few honest reports a year so we can follow it. I'm sure if problems crop up that others could figure out how to solve them going forward. I'm still a KISS guy. Throwing an anvil on a wood stump is cheap and easy to do. I can see a lot of newbies trying this and not thinking it out as carefully as Ted has done. You can't really mess up putting an anvil on a stump

With the abundance of stone and the advanced skills of masonry being practiced in the last 300 years, why are there no accounts of anvils being fastened to solid stone bases or a mortared base made of stones? I've studied just about every old photo of blacksmiths that can be found and I've seen some creative anvil stands, just none out of stone or mortar. I think they knew something that will become evident over the years of use of a concrete anvil base. Anvil's points were very well made. I'm still in the skeptical crowd with this one. I hope in 3 years you can show us all that none of your bolts have hogged loose from the concrete, that there are no cracks or degraded portions, and that it works just fine. The KISS principle really is ringing loudly in my ears. I'm sure the folks at MIT or RIT could engineer the perfect unconventional anvil stand that would be the perfect system after years of working at it. Me, I can put my anvil on a wooden stump, secure it down and be forging the same day. The stump needs no reinforcements, and if I keep it dry it will last a lifetime. Very simple and has been effective for what 300 years or more for the London pattern? I applaud you thinking outside the box, and you certainly thought through this project but a wood stump would have done the job just as well and would have been much easier to accomplish.

Welcome aboard Lawrence! There's a wealth of information on this forum (as you've already discovered) and so many experienced blacksmiths to get wisdom from. We look forward to seeing you post.

I really am rooting you on, but having worked with stone I know it's a much different animal than wood in the fact that it's much more brittle.

How will you be certain your concrete will not just crack apart when you start forging on it? The rebar is structural support, but a jack hammer can easily take apart concrete with rebar in it. You essentially will be lightly jack hammering the concrete when you forge. I hope it works for you and I hope you keep us appraised as to the success or failure of it so that others can either jump on the bandwagon or learn from your mistakes with it.

Wow, you are one letter off from my avatar name I guess there's room for 2 hammers here. It seems you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket NC Why are you in such a rush? It takes a lot of time to find a decent used anvil, but it is time well invested especially since it's just a hobby. Think about how much time you'd take looking over new cell phone options or a new car. It took me over a year to find my first anvil and I only paid $300 for it. It weighs 179 lbs and will likely be my main shop anvil for life. I had an ASO to forge on while I looked for a good anvil. You could follow Thomas' suggestion and find a scrap piece to use until you find a good used anvil. It's not instant gratification in the sense that online you click a few buttons, give them your credit card number and it's on it's way, but you pay for that convenience in the sense that you might not get a quality anvil or it weighs too little. If finding anvils was easy, everyone would have one and they would be trying to pay you to come get them out of their way. One thing that concerns me NC is that you seem rushed to get into forging. Blacksmithing skills take time to learn, so even if you can press the fast forward button acquiring your anvil you will have to slow down and still learn the skills required to make things like blades if blades are your goal. I'm not trying to burst your bubble, but you will need to make a lot of other lesser cool things before you can competently make a blade or axe (or at least a proper one). Take your time in all aspects of this craft. Some of the best blacksmiths I've seen work are the ones with 30 years of smithing that seem to never be in a hurry and glide efficiently from forge to anvil and make things so effortlessly (or so it seems).

Das - It was a fun project because he wanted the handle to look like it had been really used. That took some thinking about where scratches and dents would be. I had to really work it over and compare it to my old antique handles on tools to make sure I got the "crud" right that should be around the head if it were that old. The customer was thrilled with it and he put it over him mantle. It was found while metal detecting on an old Indian village site on private land. It's funny, I look at that axe a whole lot differently now that I'm forging than when I'd done the project years ago as someone with no forging experience.

Many years before getting into blacksmithing I did a handle reproduction for this authentic axe head dug out of the ground. My customer wanted the handle and axe head to look like it had been found in a dry cave or and old barn. The color of the photos is really off on the handle because of the lighting used, but the star here isn't my handle. Take a look at this axe head. You can really see that the axe body was made from wrought iron and the bit was made of high carbon steel. The maker's mark is really not distinguishable other than to say it's there. I'm guessing this is a French trade style axe, but there may be others with more knowledge about this. I thought the pictures were really cool to just look at from a forging standpoint. Here's what I did to furnish it with a reproduction handle

Welcome to the wonderful world of blacksmithing! Start by reading everything you can on the subject of blacksmithing. Here are some books I found helpful when I started: The Art of Blacksmithing by Alex W. Bealer A Blacksmithing Primer by Randy McDaniel The Backyard Balcksmith by Lorelei Sims Blacksmithing, Basics for the Homestead by Joe DeLaRonde The Blacksmith by Aldren A. Watson Also read the many threads on this forum. There's so much valuable information here. Next thing will be finding tools, anvil, and forge. Take your time and save a lot of money so that you can get a good start. Lastly, smile and get forging.