Cast vs. Forged Anvils?

[Crunch]

Is it important (and if so, how and why) to have an anvil that's forged rather than cast?

Also, I'm interested in the distinction between cast iron and cast steel on anvils.

Iron and steel have so many strange and wild and "art-more-than-science" properties, it seems....

I looked around and although I suspect it's been hashed to death, I can't find the discussion of forged versus cast anvils here.

Thanks in advance for any help. Total n00b here who likes woodworking and edged tools, bought an AC/DC arc welder last year, started reading Roy Underhill's stuff, and now want an anvil and forge (after the O/A rig, of course)...

It never ends, does it? Or it does, but I want to try it all first!

Best to all. Jeff

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Cast steel- weldable, malleable, and very sturdy for an anvil.

Cast Iron- brittle, and not so good for an anvil.

Forged-weldable, very strong.

Steel is iron that has had the carbon removed (which makes it brittle) and then had it added back in, in specific amounts, in order to achieve the desired results.

Forging is when you take a hot billet of steel and form it to the desired shape by using a large press, or power hammer, and dies. The grain structure of the steel is conformed to the shape of the part giving it more strength than if it was just cut out of a large chunk (billet).

I started on a 260# Fisher cast anvil. It is quiet compared to a forged anvil, and it is an excellent anvil in my opinion.

I wouldn't worry either way, as long as it is a quality anvil, and not a cheap ASO.

[pkrankow]

ASO = Anvil Shaped Object
not to be confused with
ALO = Anvil Like Object

A good ALO may remove all need to get an anvil. An ASO looks like a London pattern anvil, but is not hard enough to function properly and will show damage from regular work very quickly. Because it is soft it will also make work less productive.

Phil

[ThomasPowers]

Cast iron makes terrible anvils, I've owned one due to mischance---had my *real* anvil stolen right before a day long demo at a museum and it would dent *under* the metal I was hammering on.

EXCEPT there are a couple of brands of old anvils that had a tool steel face and a cast iron body, these range in quality as well with Fisher's being a GREAT anvil to Vulcans being on the lower end.
They both are *quiet* anvils as they don't ring as much as THWAP, very handy for working in a basement or in areas with near neighbors.

The MOB bought a cast iron HF ASO once and converted it into a propane stove by *lots* of drilling---it was dead soft and seemed to have more graphite than iron in it!

Cast Steel makes a dandy anvil; most modern made anvils go this way, and several brands of traditional anvils did so as well: Sodofors, Columbian, etc. They may suffer from edge chipping and so profit by rounding the edges if you get an unused one.

Forged Anvils: the old ones were built up out of wrought iron forge welded together with a steel face forge welded onto them. Then there were some with a wrought iron base with a cast steel upper section and some with a cast steel lower section with a traditional upper section IIRC.

If you really want to know the *DETAILS* go to the public library and ILL a copy of "Anvils in America", Postman and you will learn a lot of details indeed.

Edited September 17, 2009 by ThomasPowers

[MattBower]

Cast steel- weldable, malleable, and very sturdy for an anvil.

Cast Iron- brittle, and not so good for an anvil.

Slightly too simplistic. There are several types of cast iron. The typical ASO is white cast iron, which is brittle stuff and makes a ****** anvil. Ductile iron is white iron in which the graphite inclusions have been spheroidized by the addition of magnesium to the melt shortly before it's poured. It approaches steel in strength, toughness and hardness, and can make good anvils. It can be quenched and tempered, and Quenchcrack (Bob Nichols) told me of a ductile iron alloy that's RC 60 in the as-cast condition. Several brands of fairly well-respected new production anvils are cast in ductile iron, including TFS. I think they don't go out of their way to publicize this because smiths have such a knee-jerk negative reaction to the mention of cast iron, without realizing that not all cast irons are created equal.

[ThomasPowers]

Matt I have *NEVER* seen a white cast iron ASO; all of them were grey cast iron. (been at this 28 years so far and have seen a number of anvils in that time!)

I do know that white cast iron ones were made way back when as the 1904 sears catalog had some as I recall.

I know some modern shoeing anvils are ductile too.

But I have not seen a white cast iron modern anvil. The HF's are extremely grey cast iron and are probaly the "anvil" most folks have run into.

Are there a lot of white cast iron (cementite) anvils in your area; so much so that "most" are WCI?

[MattBower]

OK, Thomas, point made. My mistake. I've never broken one open, and I don't know why I assumed they were white CI. Gray it is. Nevertheless, my point was that ASOs are made of a brittle form of CI, which is a very different thing from ductile iron. And I don't think there's anything inaccurate in that claim.

[ThomasPowers]

Nope; there are *several* types of cast iron and I was wondering if your area had seen a cache of the white cast iron anvils Sears once sold. They were on the low end of their quality and I figured most of them got bunged up and "donated" to the WW scrap drives. Some folks claim that old tools were better where in actuality they had a lot of bad ones but they just don't last to get handed on till today---a filtering mechanism rather than starting criteria.

The HF ASO drilled easier than cold butter! Sure made a mess too. The Buffalo I bought back in 1982 was dead soft too. (Finally sold it at a loss to a fellow who swore on a stack of Bibles that he would never try using it for forging.)

[Avadon]

One thing I love about Cast Steel anvils is the lack of deafining ring. Much easier imo to work on then forged anvils as far as hearing protection goes. But then again I am biased by my Nimba. One thing I've wondered is why people don't just take a heavy ASO and hard face it. I mean you don't have to do a great job, but if you have a TIG and some S7, you probably could hard face the thing for 30$ or so provided the face isn't that big. Then just take a belt sander with very course aluminum oxide belt and sand it as level as you can. You pretty much can get a decent anvil out of it. I don't know if I would do that to a 50'lber, but if I had a 100lb cast iron ASO I might do it. It's a few hours of work but the result is nice.

[ThomasPowers]

Have to spend a lot more than $30 to get a using face on an anvil---it has to take impact and over the soft cast iron that takes some layers/thickness or you will just be chipping parts of the face off in the middle of the face! Lots of grinding and abrasive costs too. (we recently had an anvil repair clinic and *1* anvil, a good old one that had been milled to death---too thin a face to use took 6 hours of welding by a fellow who teaches welding at the local community college and has all the nice large welders too. Took about $10 of propane just for preheat of the anvil!

6 hours of time, several pounds of rods, lots of grinding---If you end up spending more than it costs to buy a good anvil the same size it doesn't seem like such a deal.

Also the swedish cast steel anvils are known for their very loud rings. The Nimba is quiet due to it's shape not the fact that it's cast steel.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Sounds like someone never tried hardfacing cast iron.

[Frosty]

I wouldn't use hard facing rod in any event, you want impact resistant not abrasion resistant. I'd use hardface build up rod/wire, it's designed to not move under impact, isn't so hard you can't grind it, has NO pass limit for build up and flows pretty darned nice so grinding is minimal. I don't know how well it'd stick to cast iron though.

I like Lincore 33 for build up wire, it's inner shield and with the right welder and feed you can lay it on hot wide and fast without checking. Nice forgiving wire though I haven't tried grinding it.

My Soderfors is cast steel with a steel face and horn. Wear ear plugs and muffs unless it's been effectively deadened. Mine's morticed into a green spruce block beded on clay and you still don't want to hit it with the hammer without ear protection.

Frosty

[Avadon]

Oh yah I forgot we were talking about cast iron. My "30$" from previous post was referring to hard facing A36. I hardfaced a 4"x13" face for about 75$ so I was thinking on a small ASO you'll prolly need half that rod. I layed down quite a thick bed of S7 for 75$. S7 has not only abrasion resistance but also considerable impact resistance. But that's true you also have to add oxy/acet heating cost to that. I don't know how S7 would weld on cast Iron. Anytime i've welded on cast iron (not cast steel) it just seemed to slough unless you had special rod and were very careful.

Frosy how heavy is your Soderfors? I guess it's just my Nimba. Maybe it has more to do with the weight. I was always told that cast anvils are quieter then forged.

[Frosty]

Mine is 125# but it's tall, long and has a very narrow waist which is a large part of the problem. Nimba anvils tend to be almost as wide as they are tall so they don't have the right proportions to be a bell.

For something to really ring it needs to resonate, long and narrow resonates much better than short and wide. Long and narrow lets the vibrations travel back and forth in waves with minimum interferance from waves traveling laterally. Vibrations in nearly square bodies tend to become random quickly due to interferance from reflections all round.

Cast iron has hard and soft spots spread throughout which generally kills resonance.

Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

The "American" version of the London Pattern anvil with long tapering horn and heel is just about perfect to increase the loudness due to the shape. Squatter, blockier anvils tone it down a bit so mouseholes should be quieter than an Arm and Hammer the same size.

Nimba with no waist to speak of gets the mass in without making a bell.

Fishers (or vulcans) with a cast iron body and steel face are quite quiet indeed. If you want a quiet anvil without having to mute I'd go with a Fisher!

I use a 515# Fisher as my main shop anvil and it's a joy on the ears. I have a 410# Trenton and it's much louder and I have a little 93# A&H that is a bell---great for demo's as long as you remember your ear plugs.

[Crunch]

Very interesting stuff, thank you all for the info.

Does anyone have any experience with the forged Ridgid "Peddinghaus" anvils?

[Avadon]

Frosty/Thomas,

So why historically did they build narrow waists into anvils? It seems like a sq block or semi rectangular block with horn and heel attached would have been the ideal shape.

Also I noticed Hofi's anvil doesn't have much ring, or at least form what I could tell on youtube. Is this because there is so much mass in the body and four feet? There is no contoured waist in his.

[Frosty]

I don't know specifically but can make some Wild guesses.

I like my Soderfors for doing decorative work because I can do more delicate scrolls, branches, etc. around the narrow heel and horn.

Being taller means I have more clearance turning something off the face before it hits the block.

The narrower face means I can work more elements closer together than on a wider face.

I find I can do things with the more gracile (nice word eh?) Soderfors that other guys are making bics and other hardy tooling to do.

Of course that's just my WAG and is probably at least 180* off target but it works for me.

Frosty

[Avadon]

Okay so what are the wild guesses as to a narrow waist on anvils? Anyone know? Was it Fashion? The scarcity of Iron? Is it because armourers or bladeworkers were sitting right up close to them and could tuck their legs in? (yah that one is a long shot lol)

I mean to me a narrow waist seems counter-intuitive when a square block is easier to pour and easier to forge.

[arftist]

Okay so what are the wild guesses as to a narrow waist on anvils? Anyone know? Was it Fashion? The scarcity of Iron? Is it because armourers or bladeworkers were sitting right up close to them and could tuck their legs in? (yah that one is a long shot lol)

I mean to me a narrow waist seems counter-intuitive when a square block is easier to pour and easier to forge.

I think Frosty answered this already, but I will give it another go. A block shape would be great for making anything that doesn't need to be bent. Once you start curving, the body of the anvil gets in the way.

[Ian]

I use Brooks (or Brooks Vaughn) cast steel anvils and of the four I have they all ring like bells. Magnets and chain help, but I'd still say wear ear defenders.
I love my Brooks dearly, especially the 1 3/4 cwt. They bounce my 'workhorse' hammer back (4 1/2lber) like a ping pong ball.
I agree that the shape of the London pattern anvils is most likely to do with bending and curving, I often tip my anvils over to take advantage of those lovely flowing curves.

Scarcety/value of iron had far more impact in very early anvil designs, before the middle ages say. Look at the viking era stuff for instance. What we would consider a stake anvil was pretty much all they had to work with. A block 4 inches wide by 6 inches long by 4 inches deep with a spike under it that was hammered into a solid oak stump is what I saw at the Ribes viking museum in Sweden. I was told that granite anvils were also used at that time too.
When you look at the quality of work produced then on such 'anvils' it makes me smile at how much time and effort is put into finding a 'proper' anvil by modern would be Smiths.
Most of us spend 90% of the time hitting on a spot no larger than 6 inches square anyway, often less.
Mass under the hammer is the most important thing to consider, thats why a peice of RR track about a foot long on it's edge is as good as a 12 inch tall anvil. Only difference is there's a lot more to aim at on an anvil, the RR track is a smaller target

[Ed Steinkirchner]

i have a 300+ lb vulcan anvil with arm and hammer logo on the side. it is cast iron with a steel plate on the face and horn and the last 3 or 4 inches if the horn is solid steel. also the face and base of the horn can't be cut with a file, but the last7 inches can be filed nicely. i know from sparks when grinding and a light etch with muriatic where the steel ends. the thing is very quiet and returns the hammer very well. my only problem is the thickness of the thing and the hardy hole size. the heel is 1-1/4 inch thick at its thinnest and the hardy hole is 1-1/4 inch square, quite hard size for me to find

[Fe-Wood]

I have a couple Peter Wright anvils. I'm wondering why most of the ones I see, including mine, have minor to severely damaged edges (chipped not rounded). I have seen relatively few "perfect" PW anvils. Is it because the steel face is harder than other anvils? or is it the market they catered to? Meaning inexperienced smiths.

[blksmth]

Chipped edges on PW anvils might be due to the quality of the steel as well as high hardness. There are hard steel anvils that do not chip easily, and there are those that do. Refflinghaus all steel anvils do not chip easily, but they do have a loud ring when sitting loose on the floor, table, or base. The ring can be reduced to a reasonable level by tightly fastening the anvil to a heavy & solid base/stump. Refflinghaus anvil steel has a high percent of carbon which increases the hardenability, but also increases the ring. Other anvils can have high percentages of some alloying elements such as chromium that can result in less ring and less hardenablility.

[Avadon]

Why did or do they create cast iron anvils with steel faces? Seems like by the time you do all that work you might as well just pour steel. Especially with the fact that cast will never fetch as much. Is it just because the heat for cast iron is much less? Is that the only factor? Or is it also price of ore? all of the above?