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I Forge Iron

Show me your anvil


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The green star has a job it does very well however it has to be dead flat and smooth to do it. the one behind it had been used to make a buffalo drill press table closer to the spindle and was drilled full of holes and looked like it had been attacked by an ax murderer when I found it, so a bit of welding and milling and I was able to use it some. Just like anything else though, once you find one another comes along, a bit bigger or better right up the New old stock 200 lb fisher i just picked up.

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Extremely nice looking anvil.  Appears that Grandpa rarely used it, if at all.  Wire brush that baby clean, remove the hardy cut off tool, heat some metal and get to smithing.  If you are really new you might want to practice your hammer control on the section of rail for a while so you don't mark up that pristine anvil.

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this isnt the one i use .  this rr anvil was bolted to back of my grandfather welding and black smithing truck  he passed away  a year before i was born  my granny used it to hold open her bed room door when she want the breeze to go thru the whole house  when she passed away this was the only thing i got to keep  i starde my  hobby smithing on it  then when i up graded i   set it on the shelf   2 years ago when i got married  i polished it and the hammer  then stamped the wedding day into the hammer  after the preacher said i now pronounce you man and wife  he hit the anvil like it owed him money and it rang out across the whole lake  the hammer is mounted on a piece of rustic cherry with the word love  on it  the anvil sits below on a side table now 

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On 3/25/2016 at 5:14 AM, a2lute said:

I'm just setting up something at my new house, this is an anvil I got from my grandfather, no identifying markings, but It's also filthy and I don't know where to look :)

 

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. I can't make any sort of even reasonably clear ID but it has lines like a Soderfors with the all round horn.

That's just a WAG mind you and I'm wrong enough I believe it's my normal state.

Frosty The Lucky.

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On 3/25/2016 at 9:30 AM, latticino said:

Extremely nice looking anvil.  Appears that Grandpa rarely used it, if at all.  Wire brush that baby clean, remove the hardy cut off tool, heat some metal and get to smithing.  If you are really new you might want to practice your hammer control on the section of rail for a while so you don't mark up that pristine anvil.

The top is in pretty nice shape, My grandpa says they had a cover or something for it back in the old days. It's long gone. I gotta build my forge before I can start heating stuff! My burner is almost finished so I shouldn't be too long though.

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On 4/1/2016 at 1:39 PM, the freewheeler said:

Mine is "cute" compared to most everyone else's!

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Photo Update!

The anvil was painted black when I purchased it, though I'm not sure if that was original or not. I wanted to strip it of paint and blacken the metal itself instead. I was hoping that underneath the paint I would find some kind of branding, but unfortunately I still did not see anything.

Anyway - Here are some before and after photos of the anvil stripped and blackened. Really pleased with the result.

before:

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after:

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100 lb Fisher on semi-permanent loan from Dad. It was once his father's. 50-s 60's vintage, I believe.

 

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Other than the torch cut on the heel, it's in great shape. Too nice, really... I don't think it's been used for much more than straightening nails and a few hinge plates. The edges are very crisp. I'm going to need a big radius bottom tool so I can draw out more smoothly.

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NICE loaner you have there. You don't really need a large fuller for drawing, use the horn and plannish on the face. The horn is more solid than a fuller in the hardy and you have an immediately available range of radii. I use the horn on my anvil as a fuller more than anything else.

You'll want to radius a portion of the edge of the anvil to set shoulders. Setting shoulders on sharp edges causes "cold shuts." Sharp inside corners concentrate force being conducted in the steel and that is where cracks then breaks initiate. You don't need to radius the whole thing, just a couple few inches on opposite sides, I like about a 1/8" radius but it's not an exact thing but don't get carried away, too large a radius isn't so helpful setting shoulders and the horn makes a nice fuller so it's unnecessary to go large on the edges.

Oh, Forge your Dad something nice with it. First or early efforts are perfect, he'll brag on them. "I let the boy use that old anvil and in no time look what he was making!" Oh yeah and don't forget Mom, Mom's LOVE anything the kids make special for her. ;)

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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Is that a sticker on the side with the name?    The Fisher Museum guy here probably can narrow down when it was made...

(Out here in the desert the fire danger is almost always "Very High"  I even had a picture of one of those signs with 6" of snow on it and still said it was "Very High"!  I think I should make one of those signs for my smithy though...)

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I just acquired my Grampa's old anvil from my Dad. Looks like it's a Trenton. The numbers across the front foot are - Z80  A81974. I thought the * after the A was a 3 at first, so I thought it was made in 1902, but when i looked real close, I could just see the imprint going around the circle. So it being an 8, I don't know when it was made. Maybe 1908 or 10?

 

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11 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Is that a sticker on the side with the name?    The Fisher Museum guy here probably can narrow down when it was made...

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It is... well half a sticker. It was njanvilman's Fisher thread that got me to my late 50's 60's estimate... but beyond that, I don't know that there's any year to year identifier. It probably doesn't matter much for a relatively modern, mass produced anvil. I do like the way it works though.

 

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John In Oly, 

Can you take a closeup of the side logo stamp of your red Trenton anvil?  I'm cataloging a database of the different Trenton logo stamps vs. the serial number ranges, would love to add yours to the list!  Thanks!

 

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