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I Forge Iron

Matthew2

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  1. Additional information: The arm and hammer anvil is 145 lbs. I mostly do lighter work like knives, tooling, and decorative stuff but will occasionally do stuff that is probably a bit big for my capability. I have a rather small work space at 8 by 12 feet. I consider this set up a portable unit with the option to work out in the yard if the weather is nice. I found a plate I forgot about shortly after posting this. I have available 1x13.5x23 and .75x12x16. The anvil base is 9.5x11.
  2. I am building a stand for a new anvil and have decided on a three legged stand. I have been trying to figure out what size top plate I should use. I already have some 3/4 plate. Is that thick enough or should I purchase something thicker? I also wonder how people prefer the size of their top plate relative to their anvil. Close fitting to get up close and personal or larger to provide room for tool storage? Thanks.
  3. Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up using a file. It didn't take very long. I included a picture of the finished product with a piece of 1 inch stock in it and one without the stock.
  4. I purchased it at an estate auction. After I purchased it, one of the neighbors told me that it had come out of Geneva. They told me it had been formed out of a single piece of steel. How did you know it was from Geneva? Do you know more information about this anvil? It would be great to get more history on it. I have wanted to get more information on it since I got it.
  5. I finally built a stand for Pete the steel mill anvil and have started using it. For one of my first projects I was going to build some tooling for Pete's hardy hole only to find that Pete's hardy is rather rough. It looks like it was torched out with irregular edges. The hardy is squarish with rounded corners at the face but flares out as it gets deeper into the anvil. I initial thought that 1 inch square would fit but not without taking off the corners. I am unsure if I should dress the hardy in some way, perhaps to square up the corners a bit with a file, or just forge the shanks on my tooling to match an irregular hole, or some other option I haven't thought of? I am open to any ideas. Thanks
  6. I have been watching prices go up for a while. Seems really high to me. Maybe in the wrong spot but it does say anvil in the ad. Copied directly from the local online classifieds with contact information stripped: "Railroad Track Anvil $220.00 Description New bladesmith blacksmith anvil. Very nice! Just in time for Xmas! Extremely tough and hard 2" precision machined striking surface. 43lbs. 6" wide x 7" height x 12" long. Four drilled mounting holes are 3/8" dia. Edge radius is 1/8" and 1/2". Clear coat finish to preserve the natural patina and prevent rust. Very nice ring to it, will sing to you as you work! Text preferred."
  7. I am ready to build a pedestal for Pete the anvil. I am in the brainstorming phase of design which makes me very open to recommendations. What do you see that I do not? I really like the metal stands that I have been looking at on the forum. In particular I like the tripods because I like getting up close to my anvil. Now the complexities; I have a small shop space. I need to have the anvil and stand relatively mobile. My main method for moving equipment is a vending machine dolly. I don't think a tripod design is going to play nicely with the dolly. So I am thinking about a base plate for the stand that I can get the noseplate of the dolly under for moving around in the shop. The drops I have kicking around the yard that could be used are the following: All measurements are in inches. Plates: 23 x 13.5 x 1 24 x 24 x 1.25 12 x 16 x 0.75 12 x 16 x 0.75 A round plate: 21 inches in diameter 0.5 inches thick A piece of C channel: 49.5 long 12 x 3 x 38 Square tube: 58 long 5 x 5 x 0.25 The base of the anvil is 12 x 15.25 and the height if 12.25 I like the face of an anvil at about 31.5 inches off the ground. I have tried the half inch plywood trick and this gives me consistent circular hammer marks. I mostly do small work but every now and then will work on something big. My design questions: I have thought about using either the 24 x 24 plate or the round plate for the base of the stand. Each has its perceived advantages. The 24 x 24 would be heavier and have a lower center of gravity meaning more stable all the way around. The round plate is more flexible in placement, takes up less space and is less of a trip hazard. Which should I use and why? Maybe I could cut the 24 x 24 into a round as a compromise? I have thought about using either the 12 x 16 or the 23 x 13.5 for the top or mounting plate of my stand. The 23 x 13.5 is thicker and would provide some extra table space. On the other had, I have two of the 12 x 16 and could weld them together for greater support if needed. (I don't know if that is a good idea or bad? I know you don't want to just stack steel but it seems the welding makes them act more like one piece of steel) The 12 x 16 gives a cleaner profile allowing me to stand closer to the anvil.Again I am torn over which would be better? I am even open to cutting the 23 x 13.5 down to fit the base of the anvil to gain the thicker plate without welding the two smaller plates together. Which is best? Is it handy to have extra space on the top of the stand or does it just get in the way? I planned on using the C channel for the legs and just using two with one forward and one aft. I am thinking about welding these plumb because I have the base plate for stability. I am also thinking about putting the webbing toward the middle for greater support directly under the body of the anvil. Something like ] [ instead of [ ]. I think that this added support directly under the body of the anvil comes as a cost of reduced resistance to twisting moment. What do you think? I have also considered welding the vertical portion of the stand and the anvil closer toward one of the sides of the base plate again for ease of tipping and moving with a dolly where the anvil will be right up against the dolly during transport. If this is just a bad idea, please let me know. If I had a good drafting program I would draw up what I am thinking. Are there any free drafting programs that somebody can recommend? Is there anything else that I am missing? Thank you in advance.
  8. I looked at the link for determining the weight of an anvil. If I use a conservative estimate of the volume of the anvil based off of blocking it up into shapes that are easy to calculate I come up with about 400 lbs. I know this figure is low because I didn't calculate the weight of anything that was an irregular shape. If I use a plank with a fulcrum and me for the counterbalance I come up with about 500 lbs. The plank was flexed heavily over the fulcrum and I thought for sure it was going to snap but it held. If we split the difference and say Pete the anvil weights 450 lbs. + or - 10% we will probably be pretty close. Someday I will have more discretionary time and actually weight it out of curiosity. Funny, I would have estimated heavier after trying unsuccessfully to lift it. Thanks for the motivation to at least make a guess at it.
  9. I wish I knew how much it weights. It exceeds the capacity of all the scales I have in the house. I would have to take it some place to weight it but that would require three other guys to be as curious as me that would be willing to help me load and unload it a couple times. Someday I will make the time and put together a posse to find out how much it weights. When I do I will stamp it on the side for future generations. For now it suffices me to know that it is extremely heavy. The ring on it can only be described as complex. It changes depending on where you tap it. Depending on where you tap it, the ring will vary in volume and pitch. It is almost as if the anvil has two or three dominant resonant frequencies with harmonics that amplify each other or cancel each other out depending on where you tap it. Toward the heel it becomes a lower pitch ring that almost sounds clanky with a piercing high pitch over note that has more sustain. In the dead center of what I would consider the sweet spot of the face all the sounds cancel out except the faintest ring at a high enough pitch that it is barely audible except perhaps by dogs. Moving two inches in any direction creates more dual tone rings that emphasize the mid tones and highs. I don't know if the complexity is a result of the base plate being welded on or from the shape or manner of construction of the anvil. I had even wondered if the sound was partly because of the striations on the side of the anvil which is one of the reasons why I had considered grinding them off. (The biggest reason why I considered grinding them off is because I have been known to hammer on the side of my anvil in the past but curiosity over whether it would change the sound of the ring did play a part.) Finally, I had wondered about the structural integrity of the anvil but that has become less of a concern because the anvil practically throws hammers back at you with more zeal than you originally put in. It has made me curious about what kind of steel it is. I would expect you could choose almost any type of formulation of steel you wanted for building a custom anvil if you worked in a steel plant. I did have another question about my anvil. I had heard somewhere that some old time smiths would sometimes test out punches and chisels on the feet and base of their anvil as they would make them. When I first got my new anvil I thought all the holes in the base were inclusions in the steel or something but on further inspection I realized they were the result of random punch marks. If it is true that the old timers would do this, this anvil has made hundreds of punches and chisels. The feet and base are riddled with punch and chisel marks.
  10. Twins run in my family. I thought we had pretty good odds of getting twins so I asked my wife how she felt about twins when we were engaged. I hadn't considered the potential of two sets. It turns out twins run in her family too. The older set is five the younger set just turned one. I averaged 3 1/2 hours of sleep a day for the first six months. I am up to about 4 1/2 to 5 hours a day now.
  11. You are right about the Russian anvil not being that bad. I use mine quite a bit. The face on mine seems a bit mushy in that it will show any errant hammer blow. It just makes me more aware about hammer control and making sure I don't hammer things when they are too cold. My biggest issue with the my Russian anvil is I have one of the models with the diagonal hardy hole. Every time I use tooling in it I worry about breaking off the heel. I wont be getting rid of it though given its sentimental status and its portable weight makes it handy for demonstrations. Besides, the twinses will need something to learn on. I have been trying to figure out the best way to render the plural of twins as well. Twins(s) seems like the plural is optional. Twins's just shows ownership. Twinses is not a real word but probably only because two sets of twins is so rare. "Pete the anvil" does indeed have a lyrical meter to it. The other name on the anvil not visible in the pictures is Dick York. Thanks for the suggestion on adding a location. I was aware of that being handy I just had a momentary lapse in memory about adding it.
  12. From what I understand the anvil did come out of a US Steel plant that shut down about twenty years ago. The previous owner was one of the men who made it. The lines are easier to identify as torch marks around where the horn meets the body because there are a couple of errant gouges. My biggest problem with the flanges is that one of the flanges was not welded on the edge of the plate but rather bisects where the mounting holes are, making it so I can only use the mounting holes under the horn. As far as buying another anvil sooner than I think, I can only hope. I started with a rail road rail. I looked for an anvil for 8 years before I finally broke down and bought one of the harbor freight anvils. It was actually my wife's Christmas present for me for our first Christmas together. It took me another 10 years to find this one. It seems anvils are not very plentiful around here and anybody that has one thinks they are made of platinum. I have found a couple that were worth getting but I have always been beaten to the deal by somebody else frequently by just minutes. It doesn't help that I do not have a lot of discretionary income. We have two sets of twins and the medical bills to prove it. We will not have our second set of twins paid off for several years. I did not expect such quick responses. Thank you so much. This web site has always been such a huge resource for me. I am grateful that it exists. I haven't posted in the past because everything I have had a question about in the past had already been covered before. Thank you.
  13. I have been working on a harbor freight Russian cast steel anvil (aso) for several years waiting for something better to show up. I finally picked this up at an estate sale without knowing much about it beyond having an anvil like shape, being heavy (I don't know what it weights but it took four strong men to lift it into and out of my truck) and having great rebound compared to what I have been working on. From those characteristics it is indeed a step up and the price was right. I did a little more research trying to get some history about it. I found a longtime neighbor of the previous owner and got more details. There used to be a steel plant not far from the estate. As the story goes, their machine shop needed an anvil and formed this out of a solid steel ingot. This explains what looks like torch cut marks along the sides. It appears the bottom plate is welded on to provide a foot for mounting. There also appears to be a welded repair to the face and edge. The steel bulges a little on the side just below the repair. As the previous owner was a long time welder I am hoping the repair is done correctly. From what I could find out it had been repaired many years previously which suggests it is durable. I have already done some forging on it just to try it out and the repair seems to be holding. Now for my questions. I am looking at building a stand for it and I am unsure how to deal with the skirt that has been welded to the base plate. Should I try to build a stand that fits inside the skirting, or set the anvil on the edges of the skirting, or remove the skirting and build a stand to suit? I am leaning toward removing the skirting but have read so many posts about not messing with the as purchased state of an anvil that I am a little head shy about removing it. The stand it came off of looked like a rail road cross tie set in the ground vertically outside his shop. I don't want to imitate his base because I would like to have it on a base set on top of the concrete inside my shop. I am most certainly interested in recommendations for a base for this thing. My next question has to do with the repair. It left the edge pretty rough. Should I just grind it with a flap disk to smooth and soften the corner hoping the repair will hold up or should I seek out somebody to help me repair the repair? I am leaning toward smooth and soften the edge and use what I can seeing as there is so much usable steel on the anvil. I have also contemplated taking a flap disk to the sides to remove the torch marks. Any thoughts? Thank you in advance for all your suggestions.
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