Should I Dress These Edges? And did I pay too much?

[GD85]

Good evening,

Bought a 138# Peter Wright anvil (my first "real" one!" this week, should be here Monday but I am having a huge struggle deciding whether or not I should take the angle grinder to the edges or not. I am pretty good at radiusing mild steel but haven't really touched anything else. A local machine shop said they wouldn't touch it.

I pretty much know what you all are going to say but please take a look at the pics and let me know what you think...



Also wondering if I overpaid. I have been looking for months, asking every shop, auto repair,machine, the local farrier who tried to sell me a swaybacked 60# vulcan with an obvious stick weld job on the horn for $150) junk store, tool store, farm/feed store, ranchers themselves with cavernous barns, craigslist, ebay, welding shop, fab places, the flea market, the scrap yard etc.
I live in a border town with primarily Spanish speakers so I think the language barrier made it more difficult than it needed to be, even though I learned the spanish word for anvil. Will probably even keep looking for servicable anvils as I am becoming just as addicted to old tools that I can use as I am to blacksmithing and other forms of metalwork.

Got this one for $325. Maybe a little more than what it should have fetched but it's done. I am looking forward to using it, as I'm sure it will kick the snot out of the RR anvil I have been using for the last couple of months. Going to pick out a nice stump for it this Saturday at a local tree farm then put her back to work!


Thanks,

-Grant

[martensite]

Price breaks down to roughly 2.50 per lb thats a good buy.When buying try to stay between 2-4 per lb as my range.The edges just need a little smoothing out so you don't put a crease in your steel when you work over the edge. Have fun that wnvil will give you years of service.

[Fe-Wood]

Nice find!!!
I wouldn't be in a hurry to dress those edges just for the sake of doing so.
Use it for a while see what you need dressed. Remember, you can always take more off but its hard to put it back on....Those chip don't look that bad

My fealing on price these days, is anything under $2.50 a pound that good and usable is good. I'm assuming you won't have shipping to up the cost?

[Rob Browne]

What a beauty! Maybe touch up the sharp bits on the edges and leave it. If you need any sharper edge for some reason just make a saddle to go over the anvil and lock into the hardy hole and you are away.

[Dave Leppo]

Anvil Corner Radius

I notice that where this reference calls for larger radii, your anvil has the most edge wear. Must have been used properly, not abused !) If and when you decide to grind, just knock the high points on the edges down and you should be good. As mentioned, sharp edges are generally not good.

[GD85]

Thanks all.

Will try making the saddle first and see how that goes. As a few suggested, I really just wanted to take off the high points in the chips so the edge wouldn't mar the work.

Glad to hear I didn't overpay, way starting to feel like the price was a little steep for something that is only 138# and that maybe I settled due to difficulty finding an affordable decent anvil here.

Thanks again,

-Grant

[CBrann]

doesn't matter what anyone says, do you feel like you should have paid more or less? You made a bargain, and paid, so in your mind the value and cost are close enough.

Compare your 138# used to a new 120# Old World for $625 anvil or Nimba 120# $900

Nice looking anvil by the way.

[Quenchcrack]

Good price! Remember if you grind the edges, you will lose the patina that has developed on the anvil over the years. It will look like you gave it a "bowl haircut". I like to see the patina as it is a badge of survivorship on an old tool. Yeah, make a saddle if you need smooth corners.

[Alwin]

It is a tool. I would smooth the edges with a flap disk, maybe 80 grit, maybe even finer. Just smooth it all out. Don't go to far with the smoothing/radiusing just make the chips on the edge transition smoothly. If you are using the anvil, after a few weeks the patina on the face will all be gone and the face will be shiny, the smoothed edges will blend right in. You'll want to adjust the edges more after using it for a while so do go lightly at first.

[Glenn]

There is a lot of talk about grinding away part of an anvil in order to make it an acceptable tool. STOP RIGHT THERE FOR A MINUTE

People object when the edges of the anvil are built up with weld to be sharp and square. People object when a missing section of an anvil is repaired or replaced to make it whole again. People object when a new anvil face (plate) is applied to the top of an anvil. All these things LOWER the price of the anvil being sold.

Now you want to grind away part of the face in order to *make it better*? And what happens if you radius the edge and do not like the results, are you then going to build it back up with weld and make it new again?



STOP FOR A MOMENT AND CONSIDER WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE.

Let us start with the blacksmith that 100 or more years ago purchased an anvil as the most important tool in his blacksmith shop. He earned his living and fed his family across that anvil. He knew he had to take care of that anvil or he would be out of business, out of a job, and hungry. As the years passed the anvil started to show signs of wear, as did the blacksmith. The anvil face was polished from work, and showed the dimples, and dents from being used. The anvil may have become swaybacked and no longer flat from years of work being done in only one place on the anvil. The edges are no longer sharp, being well worn because of the work that was done on the anvil, and if you look closely near edge is worn differently than the far edge.

The anvil MAY have been modified by the blacksmith to better assist him in the work he was doing, which could include grinding a notch in one edge, using the stop for chisel work, or even rounding an edge for a specific purpose or project. Even with all that use, the anvil is still in good condition.

When you purchase a USED anvil, the blacksmith usually did not throw it out, or put it up for sale because the anvil no longer worked, it was sold because he (the first seller) no longer used the tool (downsized his shop, retired, became ill, etc), and needed the money or the space. Many times the second seller buys the anvil cheap and then sells it for a profit.

Let me ask a couple of question. How long have YOU been blacksmithing? Do you have enough skill and expertise (and experience) in blacksmithing to even know what your doing? Let me put it another way, are you considered experienced by those that have spent years beating on hot metal? And the VERY FIRST thing you want to do is grind away part of the face because you read about it on the internet?

Did you check out the source and their references? Was it someone with a *great idea* because they read it in a book somewhere, or was it a real blacksmith with years of experience that knew what he was talking about. Did you look at the iron work he actually made and ask which bend or bump was created using that specific modification to HIS anvil? Was it one piece of iron work or was it a lifetime of iron work that could be examined? Did you ask him to show you how to make that bend or bump using that modification? Did you look at HIS ANVIL and was it modified as he suggested? Did you look close and are there still scratch marks from where it was ground away, are the scratch marks polished out, or is the modification actually been used and showing wear from that use?

Let us say that all is well and you actually got a working blacksmith that gave you first hand information based on years of experience. Let us say he was a farrier, so do you want to spend a lifetime making horse shoes? Let us say he was from a rural farming area where he sharpened a lifetime of plow shares. You going to spend your lifetime sharpening plow shares? The point is this, are you going to modify your anvil based on his lifetime of work in a specific area of blacksmithing?

You purchased an anvil. Why not put the anvil to use, and take the time to figure out how to actually use the anvil. If you need a sharp square edge, make a hardie tool for that purpose. If you need a rounded edge, make a hardie tool for that purpose. If you grind the wrong radius, throw the hardie tool into the trash and make another one that will work. If it is an older anvil the worn edges already have a radius. If it is a new anvil, hardie tools will work just as well.

The point of all this is that you may not have the same skill level, expertise lever, or need (specific product production) as the blacksmith that modified HIS anvil in a certain way. To follow advice off the internet without asking a whole lot of questions may ruin an otherwise good anvil.

It is YOU MONEY and YOUR ANVIL, so feel free to take the grinder, cutting torch, plasma torch, welder, or any other machine necessary to modify YOUR ANVIL to YOUR needs. You can always buy another one if it does not work out. Or you can go slow, learn to use what you have, and in a year or more down the road, still modify the anvil to your needs.

[unkle spike]

I rebuilt my Grandfathers anvil, because it had NO usable edges. After Grandpa died the anvil was sold at auction and went to a farm where it was abused, chipping the edges, all the edges. Rebuilding an anvil is a very intricate and time consuming project. Would you want to put all that time in, welding, grinding and stress relieving only to have the plate fall off, or that perfectly welded edge fall out, or erode?

When I need a particular radius, or a perfect 90 degree bend, I use the hardie tools I have made or my vice.

Think about it long and hard before altering an anvil, once done you can't go back, in my case it worked out, and I will be the first to say it was part luck, and part skill with my father having 40+ years of welding experience. But at anytime, that top plate can pop loose. Mine is a Mouse Hole 1820-1835, and trust me, even with Dad's skill, I was still aprehensive as a "pieced" together construction, it could have seperated at any of the 5 joints that make up the whole anvil. Big risk.

Most of the pictures of anvil repair question on here, I would clean up with a wire brush, or wire wheel at most, and have at it.

As most have said here, I will also whole heartedly agree with, swayback is a GOOD thing, you learn to work with it, and you actually can straighten pieces better due to the springback effect when the metal cools.

[DKForge]

Well put Glenn. Maybe this should be made a sticky because there is a lot of "mis-information" out there about the "need" to immediately start grinding and welding on used anvils.

[Frosty]

Well said Glenn.

I vote sticky.

Frosty

[GD85]

Glenn,

I raised the question to IFI (and myself) of modifying to suit MY needs, not because I "read it on the internet". It is something I would have considered if I had been living in a cave with no ISP and had never discovered the internet.

The way I see it is, the anvil isn't too bad BUT if I wanted to make an edge surface/surfaces where my work wouldn't get dented/dings imprinted on it. I will go with your suggestion and make hardy tools. It was something I considered before however it makes me nervous to be repeatedely bending heavier stock using a hardy tool (paranoid I will break the heel off the anvil).

It makes sense to me to fix an area that has more mass behind with a gently radiused edge(or at least cleaned surface that won't make ugly marks on the work). But you are right, I should learn to use the anvil for what it is first. I have only been smithing for 3 months, no where near accomplished but learning fairly quick how to make results acceptable to me in the relatively simple projects I have taken on (steak flippers, belt buckles, hooks, knives, numerous branding irons, and misc decorative sculptures).

-Grant

[Sidney]

How does an anvil get in this condition. My old anvil has chips out of the edges that I work around but no mater how much hot steel I pound on it has not deformed or chipped under my inexperianced hand. How do anvils get that deformed?

[Frosty]

Miss the work and make a half face blow on the anvil's edge should do it for you, if not the first time a few repeats will do it and the repeat misses can take place over decades before it blows a chip.

Some anvils are quite hard like my Soderfors, a new sharp file will barely cut the face. I'm very careful not to hit an edge and (furiously knocking on wood) I haven't knocked a chip out of it in the 25 years I've owned it. It does have chips, the worst were radiused over.

Frosty

[unkle spike]

How does an anvil get in this condition. My old anvil has chips out of the edges that I work around but no mater how much hot steel I pound on it has not deformed or chipped under my inexperianced hand. How do anvils get that deformed?

Like I said above I have seen numerous anvils on farms, but no forge?

I would say the chipped edges are a result of cold work being done. My Uncle was showing me his anvil for conversation, and he said "boy you can really hammer a lawn mower blade back straight on it", I asked how he heated the blade? His response was that "he didn't need too heat the blade, just hit it harder." A 100+ pound Peter Wright......no wonder the edges looked like where a glacier met the sea.

Oh and I didn't slap him, I just let it go......

[Glenn]

Grant, my comment was not aimed at you personally but toward the collective *you* of the public.

As to the hardie tool, design the tool so the tool rests on the anvil face. There should be NO part of the tool on the heel of the anvil, all the work should be done over the mass of the anvil. See attached photo.

You may need to attach a couple of small pieces of flat bar as guides to keep the tool centered on the anvil. The guides do not need to be large or extend above the anvil face as they just hold it in place.

The hardie tool can be 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch or 1 inch plate steel with a radius on either the near or far edge depending on how you work. I see no reason for tempering the plate as most work (for me) is done hot.

[Quenchcrack]

Well said, Glenn.

[Alwin]

If you smooth the sharp transitions on the anvil edges you will make it less likely to chip more and the rough edges won't leave marks in your work. Would you use a hammer with edges like the ones on the anvil. The comparison isn't entirely accurate because you only use a small section of the anvil edge at a time, but on any edge you are working over it should be a consideration. Your anvil is used and worn some. It does have a variety of radiuses already on the edges. Smooth those edges and use them. Unless you are collecting the anvil to sell as an antique there is no reason not to lightly dress it and some good reasons to dress it.

[Alwin]

I also want to add that your anvil is in good shape and I think with a fine grit on a flap grinder it should only take 5-10 minutes to fix it.

[Fe-Wood]

As I said in my first post and Glen so infaticly (sp) explained, no need to be in a hurry to dress it. Also, it is your anvil now. sometimes it takes working with something to understand how best to work with it.

What are YOU looking to make? As with most projects in smithing, as you make them you need to make tools. Dressing some part of your anvil is like making a tool except rather more perminent.

I have been on the hunt for a 200-250# pound anvil for a while and sometimes I think buying a new one would be the best ticket... But I like the old stuff and the detective work that goes into trying to figuring out how the previuos owners used it.

[new guy]

don't touch your anvil for a while. i just got an antique anvil last week and the idea of changing things has not occured to me. although the anvil is in pretty good shape. don't play with it until you are sure you need to fix it. good luck on your anvil though. have fun hammering away!

[Avadon]

Yah I was looking at the top down.. really not bad at all.

Question for the others.. what is the quams about taking a torch.. heating the anvil up just a slight bit to get the chill out of it and then using a precision TIG or MIG to fill in small chips.

???

[Charlotte]

Your anvil is in good enough shape that you really don't need to do a thing. Unless there is a chip that gets in your way after you've developed you work style there is no need to fix it.