whats so special about anvils anyway?

[youngdylan]

Hey, this is turning into a love in, pretty much with you there, especially about repecting the old time served guys. And on a good bit of debate/ controversy. Being too scared to tread on toes or challenge the authodoxy is the ultimate in sterility.

That said I do kinda feel the whole "blacksmithing" thing is FAR too over romamanticised, usually by hobbist's, partimers, weekenders, the dress up crowd, wannabes etc. Me? someone earning there living from always sees things from a very differnt angle, usually without the rose tinted glasses. I'm lucky in having plenty of industrial archeology on my doorstep (Kelham Island was/is? something else) I go somewhere like that and not only fall in love what was done but I'm only too aware of the working conditions those people had. A lot of them were just used as commidities, burnt up, spat out and died at an early age or led a badly crippled old age. That ain't romantic to me. We're talking industrial smiths here but I certainly don't buy into that "village blacksmith" happy ever after mythology. Those guys (and it nearly always was guys ) had HARD HARD HARD lives and I'm quite sure they didn't worship their anvils. Respect them they probably did, but I'm sure they they'd have torn chunks of them if it made there working life easier.

[Timothy Miller]

I think you missed my point. I am not talking about working conditions I know things were hard back in the day. Im talking about good work and good technique. I like you am a professional smith who works full time. I very much admire your work and follow the things you post here. They probably would have sent off to a anvil works for a custom forged anvil. Rather than trying to make there own or modify it. I don't worship mine but I do love it. Its one of things that made me want to become a smith in the first place.

[youngdylan]

like you am a professional smith who works full time. I very much admire your work and follow the things you post here. .

... likewise yourself...and your apprentice


Guess I was moving sideways with working conditions thing but it's something I bang on about any chance I get. Hey, I haven't even started ranting about the Conan the Barbarian wanna bee swordmakers yet:)

I think you missed my point.

oh so easily done on a forum ....... with all those missing but valuable non verbal clues from real life.

[junker]

maybe part of the american fascination with anvils isn't just that we don't have any castles or historical things like that, or even that anvils are hard to find and expensive as all get out here. maybe it's a bit of mentality, any europeans i have met (not many ill admit) put their focus on the finished product, while americans (atleast where i am ) focus more on the journey there. so where a european might be awstruck by a sword, the americans i know are more likely to wonder about the tools and techniques that made it. just my 2cents :D

[youngdylan]

I don't worship mine but I do love it. Its one of things that made me want to become a smith in the first place.

Sorta how I got into "contemporary smithing". I'd packed in my job as a teacher and was struggling to earn a living making silver jeweller. I needed an anvil to forge some heavy chain by making the chain, twisting it,and hammering the links flat. A 1/2 cwt would have been WAY more than I needed. Instead I found my 4cwt Brooks, in almost new condition and for £70. I HAD to find out what I could do with it. There was very little info on the web back them, there were no modern "how to" books with good colour pictures, I couldn't find out where to buy suitable coal so used my air/propane jewellers torch and some firebricks as a forge. I didn't get the time to go to forge-ins so teaching myself was VERY time consuming work. Hence the love of not following the rules and the dislike of people simply repeating dogma.... it's also why I ask dumb questions still. I spent years of welding "kit form" gates to fund a microscopic workshop to buy the tools I craved .... but making "good stuff" for my own use. Eventually I posted photos of some of this on my experimental (to me, back then) website, probably about 5 or 6 years ago and never looked back.

BTW there was a serious point to my posting, a few people seem to pick up on it. One of the older (Hi Grant) guys we all respect did over on another forum. The modifications are a quick and easy way of making an anvil with very poor edges into a very useful tool, even more so with the heel bit. If people are prepared to see past history they can aquire a working tool very easily.

The bit were I've gound away the sides to get a sharp edge near the HORN is FAR FAR FAR easier than refacing, you very rarely need more than a few inches length of sharp edge, and you only need to grind away the top 2 inches of the side. The rest of the edge having a varying radius is far more useful than a sharp edge. You take away very little mass but DO take away any historic value to a collector. In my eyes, so what? You've got yourself a working tool which is what it was meant to be when it was made. I do believe too many people get hung up on having sharp edges all over the face because they've been told that is "what you should have" and never question it.

[youngdylan]

One observation on US v UK anvil worship, over there you seem to know the maker and history of a lot of the anvils bougtht/sold .....or want to find them. Over here, as often as not anvils sold on ebay are just described as an "antique anvil", rarely is the maker given.

A lot of them are still sold as garden ornaments. Heres a good example

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...DefaultDomain_3 ..... calm down now :)

[Sam Thompson]

I tried a cutting plate for a while and hated the clattering sound that it made. The only time that I don't chisel on the face is if the tool is likeley to slip off the work. I'd never want an anvil without a table; the step is very useful to brace the pieceand even after years, the surface (although soft)is still presentable.
I've never heard of a soft faced 'cutting hammer' for use over a hardie.

[youngdylan]

Yeah, cutting plates suck.

I quite reguarly use a 4lb copper faced hammer when cutting relatively thin work on the hardy, much quicker .... and so productive .. one or two wallops and its done. No tip tapping around.

[double_edge2]

anvil, to me, its a convenient lump of steel with a history of techniques able to support a handy legion of similar tools. i also use , a remode hardy stand and a block of steel for the same jobs. so apart from "just wanting one", if it cant be used to do its job or repared economically it would have to be replaced. i sell blocks of steel to people who dont have an "avil". they still are buying an anvil, just not the traditional shape. look at Grants and others fabricated anvils. function.

[ThomasPowers]

I regularly teach new folks on my equipment and cutting plates save a whole lot of death threats!

Now what I prefer is to cut on a 2" thick slab mounted on a stump; but when I'm hauling 2 forges and 3-4 anvils and tools to teach the separate stump and slab usually stays home.

I also like to chalk the "sweet spot" on the sides of the anvils as many of them don't seem to understand what will happen to them if I catch them using the sledge out on the thin heel *again*!

"wasn't much info on the internet" There was information back in the newsgroup days back when rec.crafts.metalworking was all there is before the rfp for blacksmithing sub group. I managed to find two books back in the late 70's Weygers "Modern Blacksmith" and "Decorative and Sculptural Ironworkwork" I still have the copies I bought over 30 years ago...

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

I don't think the anvil ever reached any sort of perfection. I think they finally found a production shape that satisfied most smiths most of the time. Look at the difference between English and various European anvils. Let's face it; smiths got by for millennium with a simple flat surface, as do smiths all over the world today. It was the industrial revolution that brought us the "london pattern". Before that every anvil (like every thing else) was custom made. First production was pretty much like a "sawyers" anvil. When large numbers of customers asked for certain features, they were added. The horn was in response to large numbers of smith that did shoeing. So the anvil became a "Swiss army knife".

"One size fits all" fits no one perfectly. Tens of thousands of smiths around the world wouldn't hesitate to carve their anvils is it made any job more productive (or possible). What can you do to an anvil that prevents you from doing the common operations?

Carve away! It's just a hunk of iron! I'm not "irreverent", I'm down right sacrilegious when it comes to anvils.

[youngdylan]

"wasn't much info on the internet" There was information back in the newsgroup days back when rec.crafts.metalworking was all there is before the rfp for blacksmithing sub group. I managed to find two books back in the late 70's Weygers "Modern Blacksmith" and "Decorative and Sculptural Ironworkwork" I still have the copies I bought over 30 years ago...

Actually Thomas perhaps I should rephrase that as "I didn't have or know how to use a computer back then". I don't think either of the books you mentioned reached our shores until relatively recenetly, the book that really OPENED my eyes was "into the new iron age" by amina chatwin but I had to reverse engineer and experiment to find out how the good stuff was made.

[ThomasPowers]

Those were probably the updated re-prints. Actually I have the ones from back in the late 70's and the new ones as well---you can recognize the old ones because they have big black fingerprints on the pages from standing over a forge with a book in one hand and a piece of stock in the other trying to figure things out!

[youngdylan]

....I forgot .... we did have "Edge of the Anvil" over here, great book. Seems like there's a wealth of information available at your finger tips these days that you really had to hunt down not that many years ago. To me, one of the most inspiring "how to" books I've ever seen is Peter Parkinsons. I'd be years ahead in my "development" if that book was around when I started. It's kinda like Lillico's in that I go back to it again and again

[Fe-Wood]

A moment of silence please :D

[youngdylan]

A moment of silence please

Amen

[Timothy Miller]

So according to your logic I should use this anvil. One of two known of its brand. It should not be collected because its only a tool.

[monstermetal]

I am a tool user, abuser and worshiper... And my stand is there is no one answer that is acceptable..

I think David (youngDylan) is innovated and improved on the ol Brooks... Id be proud to have done the same thing... I also would have been sad and disjointed if the same thing had been unknowingly done to Timothy's Samson anvil..

A tool is a tool..... and a rare significant historical artifact is just that... Lets not try and lump them all togehter ok?

Is the Kittyhawk flyer is just a plane? should more care be taken with its preservation than a production line Boeing 737? people who think all planes are special and should be revered are idiots.... Its not diffrent with anvils is it? :D

[Timothy Miller]

I hardly think a cast steel brooks anvil from 1952 is historically significant. But I hold the older wrought iron anvils and fisher type anvils on a different level. If you find an one that is used up with face all chipped up and horn worn out of round why not fix it. But if you find one that is in usable shape I say leave it alone even if it has a few minor problems. Do your homework and make sure its not rare or historically significant. If it is keep it as is or if your not into collecting sell it to some one who will enjoy it. Then take the money and buy some tools you will use. There will never be anymore of these kind of anvils made period end of story, why abuse them? You will be only one owner of a anvil that probably has had more than a few. What other thing that you own or can buy is like this? An anvil, if properly used can last several careers.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

So according to your logic I should use this anvil. One of two known of its brand. It should not be collected because its only a tool.
http://www.iforgeiro...__1#entry151056

Just depends on what makes it more valuable to YOU.

[Timothy Miller]

Just depends on what makes it more valuable to YOU.

It actually has very little real value to me its 70 lbs making it too small for me to use. I really just think its cool I found it. Ideally I would like to sell it a hardcore collector. I have not met that person yet. it may go up on eBay or I might auction it off at sofa one year. The money will go towards some piece of equipment that will make me some money.

[youngdylan]

So according to your logic I should use this anvil. One of two known of its brand. It should not be collected because its only a tool.
http://www.iforgeiro...__1#entry151056

by your logic should old mechanical power hammer not be modified in any way and be hooked up to a line shaft powered by steam engines?

[Timothy Miller]

by your logic should old mechanical power hammer not be modified in any way and be hooked up to a line shaft powered by steam engines?

[youngdylan]

So according to your logic I should use this anvil. One of two known of its brand. It should not be collected because its only a tool.
http://www.iforgeiro...__1#entry151056

I guess you know my answer. USE IT. You're do if for a living and know what not to do to abuse its so it would probably be many years before you began to wear down the face or chip the edges. It's an anvil, it was made with the sole purpose of being POUNDED on. Any wear you cause would only add to it's pedigree of being used, that character adds value to me. Hey you guys love our old crumbly castles, I guess most of you would rather have them that way than all lickity spit and new. . When I used to make jeweller, customers often wanted that careworn look that only come with years of wearing.

I don't think I passed ANY comment about collecting.

I think most working smiths "collect" without thinking. I've well over a half a dozen angle grinders and more dynabrade belt sanders. I kinda yustify it to myself that it's more productive to have lots of tools set up and ready to use rather than constantly swapping over contact arms. Reality is I'm just smitten with air tools and always want more. I've even got a 2HP one that runs a 2" wide belt and DRINKS air. I just wanted to have one, haven't used it on a job ....... yet. Took a lot of looking on ebay to find one but it's Murphy's law that that the guy I got it off was selling a whole batch of the motors for them.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DYNABRADE-/220647807812?pt=UK_Air_Tools_and_Compressors

[youngdylan]

What other thing that you own or can buy is like this? An anvil, if properly used can last several careers.

MOTORBIKES and boy oh boy do they get chopped around ..... just a little bit. Can't see anyone ever making a 1973 Triumph Trident T150V ever again.