NoGoodWithUsernames

Well I got a little impatient. Don’t have cash laying around to build the nice propane refractory quite yet and discovered JABODs today sooooo here we are. First “project” on my new anvil. It’s not great, heck, not even good. But it *IS* and that’s what matters. Burning scrap wood, figured I may as well, see if it gets hot enough. Made a dull red at least so enough to piddle around with a piece of 1/4 round. And... I don’t have a blower so I *was* the blower...

Dang I go away for a couple days and all of a sudden my first project went from a pair of tongs to a triple-alloy Damascus flying car, just one question! What's the tempering process to get the clear Damascus for the windshield??

I love puns And Damascus of any sort will be quite a ways off. First I’ve got to get the basics and then make some tongs and hardy tools and the like. Now off I go for a while until I get my forge up and running and have more questions. Cheers guys!

Thank you for that feedback, that sounds like a much better idea than taking a grinder to it and risking removing too much material or gouging the face. I think it will take a little bit of a mindset change as I start forging coming from welding and machining, so thank you all in advance for bearing with me as I'm sure to have more dumb questions along the way. But I promise not to try and forge a sword on my first go!

That seems to be a strange practice, like you wouldn't test out your welder settings on the welder case? Why on an anvil? I suppose they were viewed differently back then huh? I have read not to do any work on the face, however would it be okay to touch the spots that look like weld spatter to bring them down flush to the face? If even that is not recommended there is still plenty of smooth working surface, but it would be nice to get rid of the couple bumps there are. (Also attached a few new photos, at least on the classic VW and Porsche forums I am on everyone loves photos so I figured some new photos since most of the paint is removed wouldn't go amiss.) Ring and rebound: Ring sounds reasonable to me. It's certainly not dull, and is fairly consistent across similar areas (all areas of face are the same, and areas over the heel, etc.) at this point I have not acquired any ball bearings to drop on it but when lightly tapping with the hammer it feels like the rebound test will have very good results. The hammer, even with the gentle blows to test sound, springs back very easily. Now granted I am a complete rookie so I don't really have a frame of reference, but as far as I can tell from reading about the tests and sounds on here it seems to be in good condition. Cheers!

Greetings everyone, this is my first post on this fine site though I have been avidly reading for the past few days now. I have been interested in smithing since I was a young boy at Sutter's Fort (historic museum that commonly has living history events) and the smith there "Mr. Biscuits" let me hammer on some sort of soft alloy for a bit while he was actually being productive. Late last year I spent some time in a friends shop making a set of BBQ tools for my FIL as a Christmas gift and have been playing with the idea of getting my own setup going since then. Previously mentioned friend knew I was on the lookout and sent me a craigslist link to a local anvil listed for $800 (hopefully okay to discus pricing on here??) that included an anvil stand, and another stand with small vice and arbor press. Stopped by to check it out with some guidance as to what to look for as far as face condition, and checking for repairs etc. and promptly purchased my first anvil. Yes it was a bit of an impulse buy encouraged by a friend and so far tolerated by the wife, as long as I get some stuff knocked off the "honey do" list prior to piddling around with it too much. Anywho, got it home and, over the weekend, had a little bit of time to clean the paint off and ID the anvil. The face is pretty dang clean as is the horn, though the waist has been rather abused and possibly used for some .22 target practice?! The only marking visible prior to cleanup was the stamped number by the front handling hole. After I cleaned it up I found "Broo" on the side, "205" under Broo, and "51760" on the front foot, with lots of marks and dings and gouges covering the rest of the logo unfortunately. Between all the clues we deciphered it to a 200# Hay Budden, which I'm very pleased by. As far as I can tell, it's a pre 1917 version based on having the handling hole underneath the anvil, and having a serial number that does not start with "A" (from what I can tell it's 51760, rather dinged and difficult to read) Is there any way to tell what the actual year of manufacture is? (or at least closer than somewhere between 1892-1917. It would be super cool if it was before the turn of the century. As it is, I think it's really cool that my anvil is already a century old.)