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I Forge Iron

Show me your anvil


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That mousehole reminds me of the class I taught yesterday---I was concentrating on the beginners section when out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone in the advanced section was sledging out on the heel of one of my anvils. So they got a strong talking to and I rechalked the "heavy work lines" on the sides and face of that anvil. I guess I'll need to bring the loaner anvil with the missing heel every class and assign it to the advanced class area.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ahhh that is an "actual anvil" of a type that has been in use about 10 times longer than a london pattern anvil. Don't sell it short!

Even if it's mild steel and you mess up the face (and plannishing dents can help a heap of a lot) you can flip it over and use the other side. If both sides get trashed have it ground or milled clean and do it again. You probably won't live long enough to have it get appreciable smaller doing that!

Just don't cut on it! A cutting plate is a good thing to have.

One thing you might think of is welding a piece of structural sq tubing on the side for hardy tooling---or if you want to get fancy---drill a hole just big enough for your sq tubing to fit inside and weld it top and bottom.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I picked up a new, old anvil today, a Hay-Budden that weighs about 300 pounds. It has no discernable markings except for a numeral 5 at the waist under the horn, and next to the handling hole. I looked in Postman's book, "Anvils in America." He claims that the waist numeral is a clear indication that it is a Hay Budden. There are three handling holes, two either end of the waist and one in the bottom. Postman figures that three handling holes makes the anvil pre-date 1908 in manufacture. After 1908, there were two handling holes. That's about all I could find out. The last three inches of the horn have been sanded into a sharp pointed bullet shape. I intend to heat that portion with a rosebud and free hand hammer it into a proper shape. It presently has a droop, so I'll bring it up from the bottom first, then the sides, and finally, a little hammering on top. The horn is wrought iron, so no problem. I've done this to at least a half dozen anvils in the past. The point of the anvil horn will be finished with a small radius.

FYI, some dimensions are: the face is 5 3/8" wide; the overall length is 33½"; hardy hole is 1¼" square.

I haven't been able to post photos recently. I receive a notice: "Internal Service Error."

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  • 4 weeks later...

here are a few pics of my humble little anvil. according to my highly accurate bathroom scales it weighs 110# give or take.
post-13421-0-32842200-1330012258_thumb.j yes(hangs head in shame) that is a harbor freight aso in the back....at least the hardy hole works.
as you can see it has a slight lean which requires a custom stand.
post-13421-0-91864000-1330012449_thumb.j
the face is pretty beat up, small weird shaped hardy, and the horn drifts off to the right.
post-13421-0-03485900-1330012749_thumb.j
i can't find any markings on it other than a fairly good sized round indent on each side. i "assume" the holes in the one side are from abuse sometime in the past.
post-13421-0-87779000-1330013121_thumb.jpost-13421-0-01290900-1330013169_thumb.j
a shot from the horn really shows the lean. and a shot of the bottom.
post-13421-0-74881400-1330013397_thumb.jpost-13421-0-99130700-1330013462_thumb.j
as beat up as it is it has a fair ring and good rebound. i traded a 30$ pocket knife for it, so the price was right. if anyone has an idea of the age or who made it i would greatly appreciate any info.
mark

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