April 15, 200917 yr So far in my (hobby) smithing career I've had two anvils. One was a piece of 3/4" plate MIG welded to the end of a chunk of largish I-beam. The second I cobbled together from some railroad switch plates with my then-new stick welder cranked up to about 180 amps, plus a bunch of 7018 and some hardfacing rods. It's heavy and puts plenty of mass under the hammer, but it has its limits. Well, no more of that for me. My Easter present was an anvil -- a real, 120.8 pound (by my scale -- 124 pounds by the hundredweight markings on the side), London pattern, made-in-England, Wilkinson anvil that's probably a hundred years old, if not more. Mom's neighbors (well, a couple doors down) had it sitting in their front yard. They found it in the overgrown back yard of their former house in Rhode Island years ago, and have been toting it around the country ever since. Price: $0. I owe them a favor. We left it at that. Which just goes to show that the old advice about keeping your eyes open is spot-on. The edges are in pretty rough in a couple spots; it's going to take some time with the angle grinder and flap disk to clean them up, and the radii in those spots will be rather large. In fact a small piece of the steel face flat-out chipped off the body of the anvil in one spot, which you can see in the photos. But it has a horn, hardy and pritchel holes, the face is reasonably flat, it doesn't seem to be dead, ring-wise, and for the price I can't possibly complain.
April 15, 200917 yr All right!! good for you, and I would think you owe your Mom's neighbor a really BIG favor!! I suggest, if I may, that you use it some time before you do anything to it as far as grinding/sanding anything. You may not need to and if so you will have a better idea as to what you need. Enjoy!!
April 15, 200917 yr All right! Use it for a while before you even think about "repairing, dressing or shining it up." From the one side you shot I don't see anything that needs cleaning up, I'd just stay away from the corner by the step is all. If it's like that on the other side I wouldn't change a thing. Well, except maybe knock the rust off it with hot steel and hammers. Frosty
April 15, 200917 yr Nice- Can't beat the price on that one! I agree w/Frosty- Give it some time before you choose to 'fix' it... I have run across a lot of anvils out there in my search that some well meaning person tried to 'fix', and usually they made it worse... It doesn't look TOO bad to me! -Andrew
April 15, 200917 yr Author I know what you all are saying as far as not being too quick to start grinding on it. I guess that urge comes mainly from a concern that the spot where the piece of face chipped off is a weak spot, and cracks could spread from there. Seems like rounding it off might help prevent that. But yes, for the time being I can probably just stay away from that spot.
April 15, 200917 yr Nothing wrong with that anvil, looks great! I would just clean it up with a good soak of wd-40 and start using it. Use if for a while before you do any repairs. To me those marks, dings, chips etc all have a story. While we may not know what that story is the history in that old anvil is there. Personally and this is just my personal opinion, I prefer to see those battle scars vs. ground and welded repairs. Just from the pictures you sent it looks like it is plenty useable. In the end it is yours so do what will make you happy.
April 15, 200917 yr nice I would agree with frosty use it as is and find out all its quarks I have an old one also and after 15 years od use I took the time to resurface it. But there is no rush to repair if it works for you, a wire bursh on a grinder and some oil will do the trick Edited April 15, 200917 yr by Francis Cole
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.