JDC

Took a fun trip to Seattle between the last post. Great city and food. Anyway I have sanded the crud from the face, and while doing that went through a few layers of rust and black crud. Now, with a (new) hardened ball bearing the rebound is about consistent across the face, with a 12" drop the bearing comes just above 9-10 inches. Good recommendation C-1ToolSteel to make sure of the ball bearing quality and clean face. I've done some research on Trenton's and it is really a pretty interesting history of the company and folks working at the foundry. This info coming largely from Postman's bible. The W 173/178 denotes that either Cy Wright or Karl Wright was the anvil maker. The hole in the front foot dates the anvil to pre-1904, or there about. The hour glass bottom was faded out between 1907 to 1910. The solid diamond around the Trenton logo pre-dates the hashed diamond of about 1927. The serial, A310X (6,8,3 ?), dates it to 1898 (serials A 0-4000), the first year of production. I'm looking forward to making up a furnace this late summer and having some heat and noise making fun.

BIGGUNDOCTOR, Got it, thank you.

Thank you. I will find a stainless steel ball bearing, w/hardness 58-65 Rockwell. I'll post up after I get the time to go back and clean off the face and use a stainless steel, hardened bearing.

Ok, thank you for the info. These are the ball bearings: Link removed AISI 52100 The finest quality chrome steel produced in accordance with the highest industry standards. These high precision G25 ball bearings are hot forged from bar stock. Modern furnaces with precisely controlled atmospheres and temperatures are used for heat treating to assure uniform hardness and proper microstructure for each stainless steel ball. Throughout the manufacturing process, statistical process control assures tolerance accuracy, fine surface finish and consistent high quality. Chrome steel balls offer the precise geometry and fine surface finish that makes them especially useful for bicycles, casters, drawer slides, door locks and many other applications." The front portion of the face, closer to the horn, has a solid ring, and the sound hears as 'solid'. As I test the rebound/sound, nearing the center of the face is changes to a sound which reminds me of a floor tile that has been installed, and has a hallow (no adhesive) sound when you tap on it, due to the tile not being adhered/lack of glue or connection in that area. I'll sand off any stuff on the top and see if it helps. I'll make a short video after the cleaning and re-testing. Maybe the rolling edge and center poor rebound/sound are due to a lot of wear in the center? There is only about 1/16" saddle in the center. I note your warnings not to mess with it. Thomas Powers: I'm not familiar with "To not have been built with a steel face on it; the anvil would not look like a London pattern one in the first place!"

I got this Trenton anvil a few weeks ago. It seems in pretty good shape, with no real damage that I can tell, and no visible repairs that I can note. I'm wondering if this anvil is too old, so that its' face is not a highly tempered face. I have dropped a ball bearing on the face and the rebound is poor 50% (or a bit less?). I have 4 older smaller blacksmith hammers and one of them has pretty good rebound off the face, and all around the face , front to back. The other three smaller hammers have poor rebound everywhere. So I am wondering if this anvil is too old to have a highly tempered face? I ask this because I am not sure what to expect about the face response question/health. The serial seems to be A (lower left leg gone in the divot) 310 (6 seems to be the consensus of the last digit). I do not know how to age this anvil based upon the apparent serial. Hourglass bottom. On the whole the anvil seems in very good shape. W seems as 178 or 173. I think 178. My lbs scale says 174.5. There is another Trenton post, here and that anvil seems to have Columbus USA, or something like that below Trenton. On my anvil I can not make anything out below the Trenton name. Thanks you your help in clarifying these questions.

Yes, at this time my thoughts are pretty general and still in the clouds. I'd most likely be using some type of gas. I'm thinking of building the forge, but that could change as I get into the meat of the subject. I did see a gas forge for sale, it appears to be about the size of a 55 gal drum. The owner said it's too big for what he needs now. I don't know enough about forges to have a clear idea of what I'd need or would work well. Those ideas will come this summer and fall as I get time to do the homework, in-between visiting the kids and other obligations. I'm looking forward to the research. I received some 1/2" ball bearing this morning, and was disappointed in the ball bearing drop test on the Trenton. Maybe about 50% rebound. So I took out a few older, small blacksmith ball-peen hammers to test rebound. Three of the 4 did poorly. One of the hammers had very nice rebound. I'm going to look for a more scientific method to test the hardness. If I use the 'edge' of one of the hammers face, and do a small whack, it will leave a very small edge indent. So I'm questioning the greater and also central portion of the anvils hardness. By visual appearance, the anvil seems in pretty good shape for it's age, and it has just a very shallow saddle, about 1/16th inch. The shoulders have some rounding, and gauging on my very new experience of owning an anvil, I'd say mild rounding.

I'm planning on setting up a small forge this fall, after all the fun summer kid events/distractions. Have to do some reading. I'd like to make something long enough for about 3-4 feet lengths. I don't think the font sizing is working for me here . . . I'm using 14 and I still need my telefocals. That't a good one, made me smile.

Nice pickup. Using that for a forge?

We are definitely on The Love Connection

So I brought this home, had it sand blasted, then repaired a 4" crack on the back top of the slide and made up a new 45 degree lower end corner of the slide, corner that had been busted out. Previous welding on the fixed body where the lower jaw meets the body, on each side, looked like clay had been smudged on. Not a weld form I've seen before - very wide weld likes, about 1/2" wide 'smudge'. Ground that off a bit. Same type of welding on the lock bolt where the top/base meets the screw, which had the old top/base welded to the top of a bolt head. Filled the spaces and cleaned that up. Fun time.

You all have better eyes than I do. but now that you mention it, a six might be it. Anyone know how to date the anvil?

OK, so I have the Trenton photos you all suggested, now after a little more rust removal. I could not find any other marking. Serial appears to be unusual A310, or 4310? The saddle has about 1/16th inch sag. No signs of re-work or repairs that I can tell. I am unable to read the circular stamp, though I've read somewhere that is might say Solid Wrought, but I can't make that our from the stamp. Hope to get into down today and find a 1/2" ball bearing.

Beautiful. I suspect you are in love. I would be breathing deeply and sweating profusely.

I'll go after some additional photos. So far the only visible markings are the ones I've posted up. I tried side angle shots, side lighting, etc, top rub with chalk, wet rub, which seemed the best, using chalk by writing in the indentations w/firm pad wipe off, photoshop . . . I'm going to use some Naval Jelly to pull off the rust. Perhaps that will help. Wire drill brushing shows the Trenton logo about wore out on the right side, as well as the right side of the serial number past the third numeral, a zero.

LOL. Same advice I gave to my two daughters entering dating. They did a pretty excellent job.