I know a farrier in my area who chipped the edges of his Soderfors horribly, by using it to adjust horseshoes cold.

A person can ruin anything if they want to..  Does the farrier respect his tools?  I doubt it..  to him it's just a tool to be used and discarded. 

Most farriers I knew had no problem cutting a deep groove into a new/old anvil to make a pritchel groove or a wedge shape so the shoes don't get damaged as much.. 

I wouldn't consider a farrier a blacksmith by any measure..  Nor a person to represent a whole group..  Look at the WCB all their anvils are in great shape and they use them crazy like. 

So, what does this mean..   You decide.   All my anvils are totally clean..  What does that mean. You decide.. 

Anvils don't come damaged..  

So then "Who" does the damage..   The user..  The Refflinghaus is 64Hrc..  No chips.. And... 

I think he sees repairing his anvil on a regular basis as part of the cost of doing business. 

Thank y'all for the input. I never work cold metal unless its thin (ladle bowls and such). I just want to take care of it as well as I can. 

Were soderfors heat treated all the way through or were they just case hardened?

Just the face was hardened but the entire anvil was cast from good steel.  So it's a differential hardening/tempering process.   Case hardening doesn't work for anvils as it is a wear enhancer not an impact surface enhancer.

2 hours ago, Tellburkett said:

 I never work cold metal unless its thin (ladle bowls and such). 

Soft metal against a hardened piece, the soft metal will always deflect. 

Where the problem comes in is when hard metal is hit against hard metal..  IE hammer face, sledge hammer face, etc, etc. 

I've created offset in cold metal from sheet to 1/4" thick with no problems.. 

Problem is if skills are not good enough to keep the hardened metal of a hammer away or separate from the anvil. 

Otherwise in 40 years have never seen a mild steel chip a corner on an anvil. 

Here's the anvil I got recently. 173lbs, made by Royds Works.

thats cool.

 

Thanks! I knew I would get lucky and find a good deal on one at some point. I paid $200 for it. I've used it a few times now and I really like it. Here it is mounted and in the shop:

Very nice!

I think they were sold through Winder Merchant & Steel Sheffield England.

Chelonian, that is a great shop space..  Are you able to heat it? Looks like the underside to a barn.. 

Love the vibe.. Always wanted a stone smithy.. 

Irondragon: That's very cool to know. I was not aware who the distributer was.

JLP: Yes, it is the underside of a barn. It's not heated, but unless it's an especially cold day it isn't too much of an issue. Because it's mostly underground it stays a bit warmer than outdoors on cold days, and it also stays comparatively cool in the summer. It's a pretty nice place to work!

This is my (guesstimate) 60 kg old European church window anvil I saved from a scrapper for 50 euros. The heel with the hardy hole is broken off, but the face is in top condition considering its age. On these old anvils the date of manufacturing was often engraved on the far side where the church window is located. If this date is right the anvil was made in 1778.

I'm glad I stopped by the scrapyard before it was destroyed for good. And its great to be able to work on a literal piece of history.

Currently the anvil is securely mounted to the stump with metal straps (not in the picture).

Job

Edited December 27, 20205 yr by Jobtiel1
Removed duplicate picture

I don’t know how many times you stopped at the scrapyard before you found that, but clearly your patience paid off!

Want to swap scrapyards?

JHCC: it did! I have been visiting for 2 years now, and actively looking for blacksmithing tools for the past half year.

Thomaspowers: while I have been lucky with the anvil, the scrapyard is quite small.  They fish out any interesting pieces of scrap like the anvil and any pieces of normal stock. But for things like leaf springs or interesting tools, the entire scrap yard "renews" itself daily. While this allows constant new additions, I can't visit often enough.

What a great find.. Doesn't get much better than that..  Congrats. 

My local scrapyard is fairly small too, only a couple of acres  and most of that is car salvage.  I like it because I can review all the new stuff in it in a fairly short time. What I do for fun!

I managed to take some pictures of the engravings on the anvil today for anyone interested. I have asked around and no one seems to know what they mean, except for the 1778 of course.

Could the "197" refer to the original weight in Amsterdam (or other place) ponds (pounds)?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Excellent!

As far as farriers being blacksmiths well i look at them, me included, as a specialty of the blacksmiths craft. Anybody who spends 8/10 hours a day making a living between hammer and anvil beating iron hot or cold certainly in my book is a modern day working blacksmith. 

I do my best to not make judgments. Especially to lable a whole group by the actions of a few.

Two recent acquisitions. 188 LB Mouse Hole and? Not sure who made the top example but thinking it may be another M&H?  

Or perhaps one of the other 200+ English anvil makers, many of whom learned the craft at either Mousehole or Peter Wright...

Here's my main studio anvil, a 100lb Fisher anvil in good condition. I really like the Fisher, for its size, ease of mounting and quietness.