Kevin.exe

Thomas, thanks for providing more direction to search for anvil history. I will peruse the history more. I guess using the internet won't be as powerful for research on blacksmithing compared to woodwork or software dev. And thanks for the anvilfire link (which now disappeared). I really like the idea of that cutler's anvil. A solid foundation which can be re-adapted and modified for one's needs. An anvil that can change as the user also changes. (as long as there's no major performance loss) For right now I'd like to make my chisels for woodwork, build some armor, knives, some simple tools, and experiment with ideas I have. But once I learn more about the skill, it'll open a lot of doors that I can't predict yet.

Well I guess I know now it's not the most common in the world lol. But most of the time when I see an anvil on the web it's typically the london pattern or something that looks very similar to it. I'm sure variations have their own characteristics, but so far I've just seen the "stereotypical anvil shape" or a "junkyard hunk of steel" Forgive my ignorance, but I'm just curious if people wished their anvil had other unique features/properties/shapes.

Another way to ask this question would be, "what do find most problematic/annoying while smithing on the anvil, and what would you change to solve that problem?" What does the anvil lack? I sometimes wonder if the shape on the common anvil is unchanged because it is either so effective that it covers most scenarios, or if no one has challenged the current shape to be better than it could be. I'm starting off with an improvised anvil and also wonder if unique designs have been lost to time. However... since I'm still learning so I'm mostly just interrogating people with questions and its hard to challenge when I lack the experience... I'm curious what you folks think!

I come from a woodwork background, and plan to laminate a bunch of boards together into a block where the anvil rests on end grain. My question is, what properties of wood are important to look for? So far I've seen split resistance. But does it make a big performance difference moving metal using softwood (pine, douglas fir, redwood) vs using hardwoods (ash, hickory, white oak)? And does the type of wood have a significant effect on ringing? For example hickory and ash are good at shock absorption, so baseball players use them for bats to save their arms. But maple is used for instruments since its good for producing sound (which is not ideal for ringing lol). Would maple help move more metal at the cost of ringing? Or is taking a hit on shock absorption worth it? I haven't seen anyone do experiments and comparisons on these properties around the web, so I don't know how much it can matter.