Nice find. Lots of usability in that! Don't limit youself with one orientation on a stand. 

 

If it's steel it has ANVIL written all over it in big letters!

I got my hands on something special. Long before I ever had plans to get anything above an ASO. Its 104 pounds and in pretty darn good condition.  

 

Boz

Boz,

So pretty. Congratulations.

Hey ninjarex1. Your comment about you talking to your anvil hits home for me. Mine is from my granddad and I talk to him all the time :-)

Lovely working condition!  Beautifully stamped too and the red paint staying in the stampings is a nice touch.  Handy size for a light duty anvil or a travel anvil if you go on to a larger shop anvil.

To make green wood bowls on a pole lathe, I need some gouges and other simple chisels. Rather than order them I thought I could make them. Hence the basic anvil. Rather than spend hundreds on a proper looking London anvil, I’ve made one using a tree stump and a scrap 14lb hammer head I had in “stock”. This is a starter anvil and I’ll develope over time.

The beaten metal was half a cross brace from ikea furniture; 5mm in diameter and mild steel. I heated in my wood burning stove, using wood….I had to try beating metal. It is not going to be used for anything but has a dragon head look.

Next is the forge....

 

thank you for a fantastic resource, this website holds a wealth of information

You can blacksmith in an unblown wood fire, I've done it for years as a field guy. Unless you start welding you don't have to get fancy and figure out a bellows, blower, wind concentrator to supply an air blast. 

A wood stove isn't the best choice though, I've tried it. A BBQ holds burning wood nicely and will get high carbon steel hot enough to harden. Spring steel is a good choice, it's forgiving in the heat treat and really common.(cheap) I recommend you use coil, it's easier to control than forging flat.

Frosty The Lucky. 

Glad to see people using simple methods that work rather than "needing" to have "the" tools.

Over time you might want a a bigger stump that goes on the ground. You can do some real beating on a sledge head and having it mounted in a sturdy stump on the ground will be better than on a bench. 

Keep us informed of how your journey goes!

my anvil(s)  in the far corner of Belgium.

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/61423-glue-to-hold-an-anvil-down/

Thanks Frosty and Das. Appreciate the helpful comments

I did exactly the same thing when I started out.  Just used a sledge head, mounted in a holder similar to yours.  Take your time and it will work just fine.  I also made several greenwood bowl turning tools.

I had a bud vase turner turn up at my smithy once. He wanted to make some curved shaft holders for carbide metal lathe bit inserts. So I stuck some appropriate stock in the forge, heated it up and stuck the end in the vise and told him to bend it to suit himself.  He grabbed it and hunkered down on it and overbent it terribly!  I told him to just haul up on it till he was happy, which he did.

Next weekend he bought an anvil off of me...Since he was using the carbide inserts for the cutters and the springiness (YM) of pretty much all steels is quite similar and he should never be getting to the set point!  He didn't need fancy alloys and persnickety heat treats.

Hello everybody this is my first time posting I've been lurking in the shadows reading quite a bit for a while, I like some of y'all's anvils they're definitely beauties. I've just started forging about 5 almost 6 months ago and I was working on a piece of plate steel that was not that thick and I think when I was 2 months into it I was helping my friend and his dad clear out their shop and his dad had a good-sized chunk of railroad track buried off in a corner and he told me I can have it if I want and I snatched it up and have been using it since. The other day I got the taller stump that it is now mounted on and I use 6 railroad spikes to hold it down to the stump once they're all drove in you better hope you had it in the right spot I had to cut it out of the old stump which was a Major Pain! but now that I got it on this news dump it's a little taller and I don't have to bend to work on the surface it it feels pretty nice now I have been looking for it better ASO or an actual nice anvil, I think I found one that's an old Vulcan I'm not sure about any of the information on it cuz I don't know any, I'm waiting for them to respond to an e-mail and I'm wondering how much they want for it but it looks to be about 75 lb hopefully, this chunk only weighs about 30, I don't know how much the log weighs, it wasn't an easy task loading it I'm only 5'9" and 135 on a good day lol I would guess around 75 to 85 pounds before I planed it out flat and level, yesterday when I what is getting the anvil off of the old stump I accidentally snapped off part of the face near the Hardy hole edge and I thought I ruined it but I have an arc welder and a flux core welder and I figured if I did ruin it might as well try and weld it anyway so I put a decent groove in it and penetrated it and work my way out like I had read to do on another post and I haven't laid a piece of work across that yet and actually just hit that spot to hit it to test it but I'm pretty sure it'll hold for a while at least and if it don't LOL it's just a chunk of railroad steel right?

On 2/18/2019 at 2:21 PM, Grantstew8 said:

To make green wood bowls on a pole lathe, I need some gouges and other simple chisels. Rather than order them I thought I could make them. Hence the basic anvil. Rather than spend hundreds on a proper looking London anvil, I’ve made one using a tree stump and a scrap 14lb hammer head I had in “stock”. This is a starter anvil and I’ll develope over time.

As I'm not in my prime, working on the floor is not practical. The base of the anvil above was not sturdy enough so I've modified it.

14lb Hammer anvil MK II.

It is the right height off the ground, and is much more stable and easier to work on. The timber used is from the pallets bearers used to transport 8x4 plasterboard sheets. I've cut them to length and I can see I'll add hooks for hammer and tongs.

As It happens this anvil has an oval shaft hole called a Laurel hole, (Laurel and Hardy.) I'm sure I could make a few tools that could fit...(I'm ahead of myself)

The beginnings of a JABOD can be seen in one of the photos. I tried using a terracotta pot, but that's a different post.

The blue car is a 1968 Morris Minor 1000cc 2 door. (with a red viper stripe)

Stand the hammer up.. You will get much more bang for the buck..           Bang for the buck.. chuckle, chuckle...     

I can support that statement.

eventlessbox..  That is a great setup..  Perfect for knife or sword work..    Or for forge work in general.. 

I sometimes miss the rawness of this kind of setup.. Well done..  Easy, simple, smart.. 

Please help I'm new to black smiting does this look like a good anvil it's been in the family a long long time and I just was able to dig it out from my grandparents old shop before we put their house on the market. Any ideas of age how to restore type. Any answers would help thanks.

Hey everyone.  This is my first post.  Wanted to show off my new to me Fisher anvil.  Let me know what you think.

She looks like she is ready to go to work.

BTW: Welcome to IFI Have you read this yet? READ THIS FIRST  It will help getting the best out of the forum and explain about reducing the size of pictures to save bandwidth.

Yes I read it,  thank you.  So this would be a good beginner anvil.  Thanks for the input.  I was just think that it's so old that it might be better off to a collector and get me something a little smaller and ready to go but I guess I'll go ahead and try her out.  What are the prices on something like this.

 

It would be a great beginner,  Around my area it would go for about  $2.00-4.00 a pound. What does it weigh? Anvils aren't considered old until they have a couple of centuries under their belts.

140 lbs

 

Nice Fisher Dave but get off that plastic cart before trying to use it okay? She needs a solid stand under her to do her job properly. 4" x 4" s screwed together on end makes a fine stand. Take a look in the Anvil stands section of Iforge for particulars regarding construction options, techniques, and most importantly the correct height for YOU.

Frosty The Lucky.