I live in southeast michigan, and am wondering where I can aquire an anvil. I'm sure someone will know.

Check out ebay matchless antiques always has all kinds and prices and he is in michigan
his name is steve.
Ken

IForgeIron.com > Lessons in Metalworking > Blacksmithing > LB0005 Blacksmithing Anvils

IForgeIron.com > Lessons in Metalworking > Blacksmithing > LB0006.0002 Acquisition of Tools

Thomas Powers Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique

Michigan Artist Blacksmith's Association - MABA


One of the reasons we ask you to go to the user cp and fill in your location is so we can get you information in your area. Southeast Michigan is a little vague so, using the TPAAAP technique (Thomas Powers Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique), a quick look in the Grand Rapids area and found the following:
Peter Wright Anvil 195 pound - $300 (Belding, Mich)
Anvil arm and hammer 325 lbs - $650 (616 phone code)
Blacksmithing Anvil (159lbs) - $150 (Muskegon Twp)

I would start by placing an add in a popular local newspaper. Years back when I wanted to get into smithing my Dad placed an ad in the local paper and I wound up with a 130 lb Hey Budden, and three leg vices - 4", 5

Like I did. Scour your local classified, talk to collecters, auction sales, etc.

As soon as you find the first one you will be tripping over others! At least that was how it worked for me.
Finnr

And don't forget ads in those free Shopper and Pennysaver newspapers. You will be surprised at the responses you can get from ads in them. Ditto the local radio programs with a buy/sell segment.

Also, when you check out the local antique/junque stores, ask about them at the checkout counter. A lot of times they have them, just not out on display. One local antique store that always advertised that they carried old tools had a pair of anvils - but stored in the basement! You only found that out IF you asked.

Even posting a Wanted paper at the local grocery store or feed/farm store (where they allow such things) will bring you leads.

The other thing is have CASH on hand when you go to check out an anvil - plus a little extra ta boot. It really helps the negotiations, and often leads to other "tools" that might be available from the same person - leg vices, tongs, hammers, etc.

Mikey

Don't come to Texas looking for a used anvil. They were all melted down during the Civil war and shot back at the Yankees!

Quench, can you provide documentation or references (grin).
Can accept personal experience, if accompanied by details. (even BIGGER grin)

OK, first there are no antique anvils in Texas. None, Nada, Zero, Zip, Bupkus. Nobody is owning up to having cornered the market so I figure they all got melted down for canon balls during the war. I just made up the part about shooting Yankees with them. We don't shoot Yankees anymore. At lease most of us don't (Grin)

So tell us Robert. Do cannon balls cast from the horns hurt worse than ones cast from the heals?

Frosty

Frosty, a worthy question. I really don't know. I am a native of Colorado and that seems to absolve me of any latent Yankeeness. Nobody has fired a shot at me. Yet. There is an element of truth in my nonesense, however. There was a bloomery furnce in Hughes Springs (NE Texas near Lone Star) that was reputed to have been used to make iron for the Confederacy. It was captured by the Northern Forces and possibly used to make canon balls. Maybe it is fanciful legend, maybe not. The grounds upon which the furnace was originally built was flooded in the late 50's and the furnace moved to the gates of Lone Star Steel. I investigated the furnace when I worked there and found the people who moved the stones also moved the last crust of slag left in the furnace. I liberated a small chunk of that slag. Might have been the last of the Yankee iron.

Living in Colorado absolves you of nothing, frankly it adds to the list!

SHEESH!



Frosty

Spoken like a true Eskimoe Pie!