Frazer

Yessir, been a fly on the wall for a while now. Then I made an account thinking I had a question, but I looked a little harder and found the answer. Funny how that happens. The screw looks pretty good, the screwbox however has likely seen better days. It looks like someone may have done a repair a while back, perhaps brazing, looks like brass on that seam under a nice layer of rust, but it could just be the light. However, it is mostly intact, the threads look to be in very good shape and it works, which is a good start. Might just need a bit of a clean up and not to be torqued down as hard as possible when it comes out of retirement. Also, I ended up going with this one over a 100lb mousehole that was in much better condition because I liked the size. I've only been taking classes and working from home for about 10 months so for me and for what I'm capable of doing with my current setup and level of experience, either certainly would have been fine. This one just seemed like the right choice. According to Sea Farmers post found here https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/i-bought-anvil-today-what-do-i-have-photos-154946/ [third to last comment on page 1], "Finally, got around to looking in my book, Anvils in America by Richard Postman. Richard devotes almost three pages to the Paragon anvil, which was made by a Swedish company names Soderfors. The advertisements claim that they are solid forged steel, but Postman feels they are cast steel. He says that it really doesn’t make any difference, because they are excellent anvils. Soderfors has supposedly been making anvils since about 1200 AD; however, he could only find records of the Paragon anvil dating from around 1902 as the oldest and about 1934 as the newest." I don't have the book myself yet and this only says the most recent records, nothing definitive, so I'd defer to someone else's response if they can provide something more concrete. Yes that will likely help, before any of that I will probably be forging out a few J shaped hooks I can drive down into the wooden stand to fix it in place. As it sits now I can actually move the anvil around a bit within those straps, so they aren't applying much, if any downward force and therefore are doing little to dampen the vibrations. It's also not particularly helpful when working on the horn to have the anvil shifting on its stand. It's not moving a lot, just slightly, but that's enough to justify a quick fix.

First post here, though this was note worthy, I drove 10 hours round trip over to PA last weekend for my first anvil. A 150lb, 1920 Soderfors made in Stockholm, Sweden. I had been working off my improvised anvil for a little under a year. It was a ~3" round of hardened steel maybe 10-12" long that I freed from some larger assembly I found in a local scrapyard. It worked well enough to make small things and to learn hammer control with while I saved up some funds. Since this is my first anvil, in terms of a review I can't really offer any insight as to how it compares to anvils from other makers, what I can say is that I love working on this gal. She's very lively. I haven't done a formal rebound test or anything, just light bouncing of a hammer on the face, but it is certainly better than what I was working on before, and she moves steel much more efficiently. She is also LOUD, rang like a bell with every hammer strike until I stuck 2 very strong magnets I had laying around from building a dc motor which has helped a lot. I'm also going to modify the stand, which came as you see in the picture, to hold her down a little tighter. Which I think should kill the rest. Or at least most of it. Her previous owner definitely put her to work so she has some character, which I don't mind at all. Definite sway in the face on the sweet spot, the edges have a little chipping, but there is still a ton of area to work on and there is also a cut in the face over by the pritchel hole. Possibly from a torch? I have no idea, maybe one of you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. When I first got her she had a thick coat of brown paint, which I was able to remove for the most part with several hours of scrubbing and wire wheeling. I didn't want to make the surface shiny and clean just so I could beat on it with a hammer, but I didn't like the brown. During cleanup I found some other stamps and I am curious if anyone might be able to provide some information on. Under the heel on the foot there is the date, 1920, and under that there is a number 6. Not sure why it's there or what it means. Also to the left of that, there is another stamp which is upside down, but is an F inside a C. Looks like maybe a touch mark from a previous owner, or a stamp from when it was imported, or maybe that's just how it left the factory. Hard for me to say. Those are the only stamps I've seen so far. I ended up paying 700 bucks for the anvil with a hardy, a post vise (no markings that I saw on it on it), a Reed Mfg bench vise, (pictures here if you care to see and some other smaller tools, which seems fair to me. Even if you think I took a bath at that price I am very happy with my purchase and that I took the long drive out there. The guy I bought her from is a retired farrier who was selling off some of the stuff in his shop, which was full of different anvils (probably 15-20 or so, I wasn't really counting) ranging from 10-500 lbs, and tons (perhaps literally) of vises he'd acquired from 30 years of collecting. Real nice guy. I've seen pictures the of the anvil pyramids here, but to see stacks of Colombian and Fisher anvils as well as the various other ones he had tucked away around his shop was really cool to see in person. I'll admit I may have drooled a bit as he showed me around. So overall, in my humble estimation, Soderfors makes a quality anvil and I look forward to using it for a long time to come. PS sorry if the pictures look bad on your end. I have a flip phone that was not made to take nice pictures, did my best with the lighting.