Shotpeening an Anvil?

[Shwartz]

Hi, I'm new to this site and to blacksmithing (got hooked after I completed a short course at Cold Hanworth Forge here in the UK)!

I recently bought an anvil on ebay (how many times have you heard this sad story!)which was advertised as 'new', but it turned out to be an un-finished casting. I'm not too down-hearted as it's marked 'Brooks, England' so I think it's basically a sound steel casting? I've cleaned up the face, table and bick with a grinder and it all looks OK and it rings like a bell when struck with a hammer. The only problem is that it marks very easily as it's not hardened.

I'm not sure I'll be able to find a company who are equipped to heat treat the face of the anvil here in the UK. Even if I can, I fear they might do more harm than good if they don't know exactly what they are dealing with? I have read references to anvils 'work hardening' so I wondered if it would be worth getting the face of the anvil shotpeened? I think that this may increase the hardness of the face without any risk of doing permanent damage?

Any thoughts or advice before I make further enquiries?

Thanks in advance.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Shotpeening may help some, but a proper heat treat would be best as it would impart a deeper treatment. Shotpeening is sort of like case hardening, in that it is a thin surface treatment.

It is cast steel, and not a cast iron ASO right?

Another option would be to weld a tool steel plate to the top.

Good luck, and if you put your location in your header it will get you better help. IFI has a number of members across the UK, one may be around the corner from you.

[Mainely,Bob]

Quick test,take one of those old chisels you bought at a sale or a hammer you need to rework and touch that grinder to it hard enough to produce a quantity of sparks and pay close attention to what they look like.These type of tools are most likely made of hardenable steel.I say most likely because I have some old iron hammer heads and there are cheap mild steel imports around,best to spark from known sources of good hard steel.
If the sparks look like the ones that came off your anvil and the anvil didn`t grind up with few dull sparks and lots a dust(A sign of cast iron)then there`s a chance you may have a decent chance of doing something with it.
That`s what a spark test for steel is really all about.Grinding to get sparks from an unknown metal and comparing those sparks to a those from a known source.
The first step is to find out for sure what you have.It`s either an anvil kit you need to finish or an ASO (Anvil Shaped Object) made from cast iron and you need to keep looking for the real thing.An ASO will only disappoint and there`s really no cure no matter how much money you throw at it.Save you cash to put toward a real anvil.

Get sparkin`!

[Dave Leppo]

He said "it rings like a bell when struck with a hammer" so I guess it's not cast iron. I'd do the spark test anyway, to check carbon content. It's possible it WAS a good anvil, but was in a building fire, and hence annealed, in which case it can be re-hardened by heat-treating.

BTW, my Peter Wright is a excellent anvil, but it WILL MARK slightly if I hit it with the pein or edge of a hammer. Maybe it's relitively hard, and you want to use a slightly softer hammer, (and good aim)

edit: However, you said that "It marks VERY EASILY and is NOT HARD, so you can rule out my last comment.

[MattBower]

This is very weird; I've never heard of a new, commercial, steel anvil that hasn't been heat treated by the manufacturer. I realize you say it's an unfinished casting, but I've never heard of an anvil manufacturer selling unfinished castings. Odd. If not for the fact that you say it, "rings like a bell" (which cast iron doesn't normally do), I would suspect that someone was making cast iron counterfeits of steel anvils.

[bruce wilcock]

Brooks anvils are cast in the uk and heat treated in the uk , .Though i cant see Brooks selling a unfinished anvil with there name plastred down the side for you to dump in a fire and perhaps end up with edges like flint , i would make a phone call to Brooks to sort it out

[MattBower]

Yeah, here's your manufacturer: http://www.anvils.co.uk/farrierstools.htm (Vaughan's apparently owns the Brooks name.)

Says right on the website that their anvils are hardened, cast steel (to 60-65 RC, they claim, which I'm struggling to believe). So something's not right. If they're even close to telling the truth, the face of that anvil should be harder than your hammer is likely to be.

[bruce wilcock]

This is very weird; I've never heard of a new, commercial, steel anvil that hasn't been heat treated by the manufacturer. I realize you say it's an unfinished casting, but I've never heard of an anvil manufacturer selling unfinished castings. Odd. If not for the fact that you say it, "rings like a bell" (which cast iron doesn't normally do), I would suspect that someone was making cast iron counterfeits of steel anvils.

i must have been typing my when you posted yours,just a thought perhaps a SG cast iron would ring , or it fell off a pallet on the way to the fettling and heat treat shop ,into a passing shopping bag.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Be nice to see a picture. Could be a casting reject of a currently made anvil. Nimba has found thee or four of theirs floating around. Went out the back door of the foundry apparently. Larry (monstermetal) has one.

edit: just noticed he said "Brooks", They make cast steel anvils. How would it end up crossing the pond unfinished? strange.

[ThomasPowers]

Shoot in NM we see tons of unfinished cast anvils coming up from Old Mexico. Some of them are decent alloy but all are unfinished and un heat treated and a lot are very poorly cast with a big casting line, often offset!, running down the center of the face.

[philip in china]

Let's have a picture! It might be a Vaughans that got sneaked out of the system somewhere before it was heat treated. It might be a copy that somebody has made from an original Vaughan in which case it could be made of anything.

BTW to the person who had difficulty believing the claimed hardness of a Brooks anvil- I have no problem as I own and use one. They are tremendously good, hard anvils.

If it is a genuine Brooks then it really is worth getting it professionally heat treated. How big is it? Did you mention?

[MattBower]

Shoot in NM we see tons of unfinished cast anvils coming up from Old Mexico. Some of them are decent alloy but all are unfinished and un heat treated and a lot are very poorly cast with a big casting line, often offset!, running down the center of the face.

Huh. Well, now I've heard of it. Of course, that's Mexico!

[MattBower]

Hi Phillip. That was me. I expressed some doubt on that mainly because nobody seems to make anvils that hard anymore. Refflinghaus claims RC 59, Kohlswa 55, Nimba and the cast ductile iron anvils (like TFS) claim to be in the low 50s, etc. (I can't find a number for Peddinghaus. Oops -- disregard. 52-54 for Peddinghaus.) And I'd think it would be a challenge to get RC 60 in such a large cross-section, let alone RC 65. But I could certainly be wrong about this. In any event I wasn't trying to suggest that they're not good anvils; I was just a little surprised at the hardness numbers.

[philip in china]

I tried to PM you, Matt, but this machine doesn't seem to want to send PMs.

BTW I am absolutely NOT on commission from Vaughans but I do wonder if any anvil manufacturer in the world has as large a range of anvils as they have. I certainly am not aware of anybody but don't claim to be an expert. Maybe one of the real experts on the site could answer that one.

[Shwartz]

Thanks for your comments and advice, apologies for taking a while to reply, I've been travelling to Montreal!

I have e-mailed Vaughns about the possibility of getting them to heat treat the anvil, but no response yet. I guess I'll try to find a heat treatment shop here in the UK who are willing to have a go? If I draw a blank, then I might try the shotpeening as a low risk treatment that might have some benefit?

I think that this anvil must have come out of Brooks by the 'back door' before it was finished? Maybe they had stock of castings when they went out of business? It's not cast iron and the casting of the makers name is very crisp, so I don't think it's a copy?

Thanks again.

[Dragons lair]

Thanks for your comments and advice, apologies for taking a while to reply, I've been travelling to Montreal!

I have e-mailed Vaughns about the possibility of getting them to heat treat the anvil, but no response yet. I guess I'll try to find a heat treatment shop here in the UK who are willing to have a go? If I draw a blank, then I might try the shotpeening as a low risk treatment that might have some benefit?

I think that this anvil must have come out of Brooks by the 'back door' before it was finished? Maybe they had stock of castings when they went out of business? It's not cast iron and the casting of the makers name is very crisp, so I don't think it's a copy?

Thanks again.

Everything I have ever seen that was shot peined left the surface with a zillion tiny dents. Now we take a flap wheel and smooth it out. Ya may have just sanded off the micro thin hard surface. Soften up your hammer(hit where ya aim)or plate it.
Ken.

[Shwartz]

An update on my anvil. I did get a reply from Vaughans who were good enough to advise me how much material to mill off the face of the avil casting (apparently they are cast upside down, so all the impurities are just under the surface of the face). They then hardened the face for me using a very old machine which they get from the Brooks company when they bought all the tooling for the range of anvils. Very interesting set-up with a multi burner oxy-acetylene flame which traverses along the face of the anvil heating the surface which is then quenched in a continuous process by jets of water following along behind.

A good result, as I now have the newest Brooks anvil in existence!

[monstermetal]

That's fantastic! Glad to hear a positive story once in a while

[fciron]

So, did they offer any explanation of how an unfinished one got loose in the world?

That's very cool that they heat-treated it for you. Hope it wasn't too dear.

[youngdylan]

An update on my anvil. I did get a reply from Vaughans who were good enough to advise me how much material to mill off the face of the avil casting (apparently they are cast upside down, so all the impurities are just under the surface of the face). They then hardened the face for me using a very old machine which they get from the Brooks company when they bought all the tooling for the range of anvils. Very interesting set-up with a multi burner oxy-acetylene flame which traverses along the face of the anvil heating the surface which is then quenched in a continuous process by jets of water following along behind.

A good result, as I now have the newest Brooks anvil in existence!

I won't deal with Vaughans for reasons of my own but that's pretty decent of them. A lot of large companies don't want to know about piddling little bits of work that disprupt there "flow". Another company that did something similar for me was Flamefast. I took a blown air/ gas torch over to them years ago (they're nearby in Bolton) I was just hoping for some advice but they spent about 1/2 hour changing the jet over from natural gas to to propane as I watched (more involved than it sounds), and then only charged me £20. I love it when big companies are helpful like that.

Did you get any pictures of it being done, it would be great to see

[youngdylan]

I recently bought an anvil on ebay (how many times have you heard this sad story!)which was advertised as 'new', but it turned out to be an un-finished casting. I'm not too down-hearted as it's marked 'Brooks, England'

Was it on ebay not that long ago (months maybe a year) ago and around 1 1/2 cwt. The guy kept putting one up after another as he sold them. I saw him sell about 6. I was going to bid for one myself but didn't . Sounds like he got a batch of them. Maybe through naughty back door channels, mates in the factory and all that. I once bought a brand new air reciever which I only found out a few weeks later came via a similar channel. There's a lot of stuff sold on ebay which has been thieved from building sites or come "direct" from the factory.

[ThomasPowers]

Here in the South West part of America we get a lot of newly cast anvils from Mexico that were cast from molds taken from antique anvils with no heat treat and of any alloy they had in the ladle when they finish a different run! They are easy to tell as the casting seam goes straight through the face, horn and body which of course Trentons, Hay Buddens, etc *NEVER* had.

I expect to see ones that have been fettled, stamped and aged start showing up soon---the ballbearing test will become very important at the local auction!

[ironstein]

Thats a cool story that they heat treated it for you. Did they charge you?

[Shwartz]

The guy I dealt with at Vaughns thought that my anvil had been 'doing the rounds' on ebay, as he had been contacted by several previous owners. He was suspicious that it was a scrap casting, so he insisted on my taking it to their works for him to check over before he would commit to heat treating it. Apparently none of the previous ownwers could be bothered and had put it back up for sale! Maybe the calls were fron five disappointed owners of the other castings? I bought mine from a steel stockholder near Devises.

They did charge me to heat treat it, but a very fair price. No photos of the process I'm afraid.

[youngdylan]

The guy I dealt with at Vaughns thought that my anvil had been 'doing the rounds' on ebay, as he had been contacted by several previous owners. He was suspicious that it was a scrap casting, so he insisted on my taking it to their works for him to check over before he would commit to heat treating it. Apparently none of the previous ownwers could be bothered and had put it back up for sale! Maybe the calls were fron five disappointed owners of the other castings? I bought mine from a steel stockholder near Devises.

They did charge me to heat treat it, but a very fair price. No photos of the process I'm afraid.

I'm pretty sure that was one of the ones I saw, the stockholder bit rings a bell. The guy I saw kept selling them one after another after another; the next after the last sold. They all went for different prices, somewher around the £200 mark IIRC. It was the same guy selling them not 5 different disgruntled sellers selling them on.

Pretty cool you getting them heat treated ..... enjoy

Out of curiosity was was the price?