Show me your anvil

[Richie B.]

Thanks for sharing.

Love the design of your stand. Will have to give it try.

 

 

[Machine shop]

My Christmas present arrived this afternoon. It’s a 300lb ish double bick anvil. I think it is a mouse hole but there are no markings, so I am 100% sure. Any anvil spotters out there that could comment?

the face is flat with only one small chip on one of the edges. Useful but not extreme radius on the edges. It’s always a bit of a risk buying something like an anvil on the basis of pictures only.

[JHCC]

Hard to say in the absence of any markings. Remember that there were hundreds of anvil makers in England, many of whom trained at Mousehole Forge or Peter Wright or one of the other well-known shops and then went on to make anvils of similar style on their own.

Lovely anvil, regardless.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

It might be helpful to know where in the world you are located. Hence the suggestion to put a general location in your profile. No matter who made it, if it passes the ring & rebound test it's a good one for sure.

[Machine shop]

I have updated my profile. I am in the East Midlands of England, about an hour from Nottingham ( where the bloke with the green hat, bow and arrow hails from)

And about an hour from Sheffield

While I am at it I might as well show you my current anvil. About a 100lber on an oak stump. 

[Stash]

I like the new one, but the old one is no slacker either. Show us  more of the Rover, too.

Steve

[Richie B.]

Nice looking anvil.

I am looking forward to cleaning up my anvil so I can reveal its secrets.

[Machine shop]

I spent a couple of hours this morning wire wheeling the anvil and giving it a coat of Linseed oil. Now need to find another oak stump

[JHCC]

That’s a handsome chunk of metal. 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

In the UK  Peter Sharples Waterfoot is a big wheeler dealer in anvils.  He has sold a few of this pattern (South Hampton?)  IIRC he is in Cowpens (sp?)

[Richie B.]

Beautiful anvil. Nice job on the cleanup.

 

[Richie B.]

HI ThomasPowers,

Thanks for the clarification on the missing horn.  Originally, I heard the story from my high school history teacher.

When I later found one without a horn on my grandma's farm which predated the Civil Wars, the story seemed true.

Thanks,

Richie

[ThomasPowers]

That's pretty much how "Urban Legends" work---they seem to be true and since folks like the story they repeat it and after a few times it goes from a "perhaps" to  "a given fact".

The fact that a teacher told you doesn't mean squat. I had a 6th grade teacher in Indiana tell the class that "heavy water was water charged with carbon particles used to weigh down tractor tires."   He was not amused when I told him that it was isotopes of hydrogen and used for thermonuclear bombs!

Many a year ago Paw Paw Wilson told that story as a guess to a US Park Ranger and soon after it was being told as the truth to visitors by other Rangers.

Since you don't need a horn to make horseshoes perhaps you can explain how that would have worked?  Dropping it in a river would have been faster and easier and more effective.

[Richie B.]

Yeah.

Urban legends make for good stories.

I didn't know that the horn was not needed to make horseshoes. 

I have a lot to learn about blacksmithing.

Yeah dropping it the river would have worked.

My wife's great grandfather was a blacksmith. I wish that he was around to teach me.

I found a local blacksmith guild that meets once a month. I am looking forward to attending some of those meeting. 

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

 

[David Einhorn]

When they took down the in-laws family barn in Maryland, they found an early 1800s anvil buried in the foundation.  No one in the family knew if it being buried was due to hiding it during the War Between the States.  

[Richie B.]

Wow. Such a cool story.

Nice anvil. Great markings.

Thanks for sharing.

I searched my family's old smokehouse but found nothing like this.

We do have an big cast iron pot. 

It was used pre civil war to boil soil from the cave on the family farm to get saltpeter for gunpowder.

As a child, we used it to scald hogs as part of the butchering process.

 

[JHCC]

My ninth grade history teacher was a fantastic lecturer, and his classes were always informative and entertaining. It was only later that I realized that much of what he taught us was quite wrong (for example, that the charge of the Light Brigade was not only successful, but also the decisive engagement of the Crimean War).

[Richie B.]

I had a math teacher that always said "believe none of what you hear and half of what you see"

[Stash]

The original homestead of my 7th great grandfather is a historic site now in Lancaster, PA. I went to a PABA (local abana affiliate) event there and tried to reclaim the family anvil, but they wouldn't give it to me.

Steve

[ThomasPowers]

The first project I teach new people wanting to smith is a simple S hook with tapered ends, counter bends and a twist in the middle.  I teach it NOT using the horn of the anvil to do the bends so a new smith will understand you don't need a London pattern anvil to get started with.  Now the London Pattern anvil is like a Swiss army knife of anvils having a lot of features that can be used to speed up your work: Heel, Hardy Hole, Pritchel Hole, Cutting Step, Horn.  They all are nice to have but not a requirement. There are ways to work around all of those and the skills you learn doing so can be a big help in your smithing of other things.  (You may notice that modern anvils specifically designed for shoeing have modified the London pattern to use cams rather than the horn...)

I freely admit that while I teach my students to do the first counter bend with a small hammer and the edge of the anvil; I try to have them do the second counter bend in with a set of needle nose pliers.   There is more than one way to do most smithing tasks and knowing variations helps---like when your needle nose pliers are 250 miles away!

[Richie B.]

I appreciate the tips.

I will add this to my notes.

[Patrick Kelly]

Hello good people!

Some pictures of my 75kg Peddinghaus that I bought yesterday. Cleaned up nicely with a wire wheel, she's in good shape

I was originally after an ASO and found one locally really cheap but the seller told me he also had a real anvil for sale and wouldn't accept no less than 350 euros. I asked for a few pics and jumped at the offer. It's my first anvil and should serve me well. Is there any way of telling what year it was roughly manufactured?

 

[Stash]

I can't answer your age question, but I will say that is a beautiful anvil, and a good size. And welcome.

Steve

[JHCC]

Considering that €350 is about $395 and that a new 75kg/165lb Ridgid/Peddinghaus anvil goes for about $1,000 more, I think you did very well!

[Patrick Kelly]

Thanks for the welcome and yes JHCC I got real lucky on this one. Couldn't say no to this offer even if it mean't going over my budget, got lots of other ongoing projects at the moment.

Going to make a custom stand for it next out of cinder blocks, rebar and concrete