Ok. i finally got my hands on a real anvil. i was wondering if anyone had any advice on holding it to a log. it's 100 lbs. i was thinking about drilling holes in the base and using spikes to hold it down. I don't have any chains or leather straps. i just don't know if it's a good idea or if i'll even be able to drill through the steel. any ideas?

Drilling on an anvil is hard, even in the soft feet since the material is so thick.

Here are ideas.


Phil

I don't hold any of my anvils down. I cut two pieces of scrap 2x6 to fit the curve of the anvil sides and nailed those to a stump and just drop the anvil in place. Of course I don't worry about noise and I do move those small anvils quite a lot teaching and demoing and so easy on-off helps a lot!

The big shop anvil has 4 fence staples, 2 per side, to hold it in place. These are small things and just provide a bump to keep the big anvil from walking under heavy work. (515# Fisher)

If you need to strap it to quiet it forge a 4 straps to go over the feet and lag bolt them to the stump leaving enough of a gap that you can retighten later if needed.

Most of my anvils are held down with two mild steel flat pieces, a hole in either end, one on the base under the horn side , crosswise of the anvil length. The other one goes on the anvil base, heel end, crosswise of the length. I use four Allthread lengths fastened to the stump coming up at the proper angle and through the holes, then sucked down with washers and nuts. A couple of my anvils are sitting in ¼" plate boxes of sand, so in that case, I arc weld the Allthread to the sides of the box. When using sand, the anvil will rock around in use, unless it is fastened down tightly. The sandbox idea came from "Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds" (work and tools of the artsmith) by Otto Schmirler. The strap iron idea came from "The 20th Century Toolsmith and Steelworker" by H. Holford.

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