don't tread on me Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 ANVILITIS A disease causing longing and craving for anvils no matter how many you have. FOUND MOST OFTEN IN BLACKSMITHS SYMPTOMS: When in sight of an anvil, bulging eyes, druling and spasmatic hand movements toward wallet. THIS IS SERIOUS, IF YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH THIS DISEASE COMMENT NOW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harley Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 I have had an acute case of anvilitis for the past 11 yrs. Bad news: There is no cure. I once bid on an anvil on ebay. won the bid went to pick up the anvil and came home with 4 anvils............ Harley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edge9001 Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 I have not caught full blown anvilitis, I have the early stages: anvilosis. the sysptoms of which include, a strong desire to be near an anvil ussually with a hammer in one hand and hot steel in the other. the stong urge to start designing a new project every time you see metal, including structural steel still attached to a building in use. the automatic motions made towards the tool isle of any and all stores, and the zombie like leg drag created when a blacksmith has stepped an something sharp or in some other way injured a foot or leg while attempting to get to a certain metal item at the junk yard and then continues on the the item. this disease is the begining stages of anvilitis, it may progress itno full blown anvilitis but not in every case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sask Mark Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 Add me to the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 I only have 10 anvils I can stop at any time.:blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 It's a serious condition to be sure. Please feel free to avail yourself of the Frosty cure offer and send them all here for safe storage so you can finally be free of the condition! Don't forget there are MANY related conditions and I have room to keep ALL those pesky infectious blacksmithing tools safely out of your reach. Please contact me off the forum and I'll send you the info so you can ship all that addictive and infectious stuff here for safe keeping. Frosty the Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaBlacksmith33 Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 ya its a pretty contageous disease....why i havent even bought my first anvil yet because im just now starting to blacksmith and look for one....and i stay up constantly looking at anvils,knives,and blacksmith art....its starting to consume my life, but i enjoy it, for a 23 yr old i think its pretty good for me. keeps my mind busy and keeps me busy, and most of all you meet great people.I cant wait to get my very own first anvil and go hammer crazy.im like most of you...you can never have enough anvils :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 8, 2010 Share Posted October 8, 2010 You have a good point, there's nothing like packing an anvil addiction around with you to keep you from RUNNING the streets. A good field expedient anvil is a truck drive axle burried flange up at a good working height. Best of all, I don't think axles are all that infectuous but I could be wrong. Frosty the Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philip in china Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Put me down for 4. I did have 5 but gave 1 away. Do swage blocks count. REMEMBER I have said before: never store all your anvils together. It makes it too easy for your wife to count them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peacock Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I had it but found a treatment that seems to work. I am down to 2 anvils with no side affects. It is amazing how 10 power hammers has helped. Carefull some times the cure is worse than the disease. have been stricken with sleeplessness as of late. Seems planing a 5lb air hammer build may be causing a fever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sask Mark Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Here's proof of my affliction. My kids (the reasons why I don't have more anvils) posing with most of my anvils. I don't think my wife would allow me to partake in such a controversial therapy as peacock is undergoing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrkiddi Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 i have anvilites but i have it under control! being as there aren't many anvils around here and they are Very expensive!...but unfortunately i have hammerites and carspringites:/ and there is enough to go around! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Here's proof of my affliction. Much as I admire your anvil collection Mark, I have to say those are two great looking kids, wonderful smiles. Thank goodness they inherited their looks from someone else eh? Oh yeah, the anvils. What's the size of your Soderfors? I have a Sorceress #5 (125lbs.) and it's the sweetest anvil I've ever used. I'm thinking you have at least one more anvil than is healthy and I have just the spot for that Soderfors. Frosty the Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sask Mark Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Thanks Frosty. I always tell the wife that I know the kids are hers, but no one can prove their mine without testing. However, I've been told the boy looks a lot like me except. They must be mine as they have each already claimed one of the anvils as their own. The Soderfors is a 135 pounder. Honestly, I haven't had a chance to try it out yet since I bought it, but based on your view of them, I'm sure it will work just fine. You are welcome to use it, but i think the drive would be killer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Before I knew any better I tried the anvil testing method laid out by Alex Bealer in "The Art of Blacksmithing." Yeah, I took a cold chisel and a 3lb hammer to my soderfors' face. That chisel is now my veining tool as it was flattened without marking the anvil's face. A new sharp single cut chisel barely marks her face. The big thing I have to say for someone who isn't familiar with a Soderfors is BEWARE THE RING! Mounted on a wood block mine will make my ears ring through plugs AND muffs! What really took some of the viscious out of it's ring was mortising it into a green spruce block to the top of the foot and bedding it in a little clay. Quieted it down nicely. Still Soderfors are known for having an ear damaging ring. They're HC steel face on a cast steel body so the parts are similar enough steel they resonate together. I discovered putting my Trenton on a steel stand took a lot of it's ring out too so it may be an option for a Soderfors. Frosty the Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sask Mark Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 The larger Brooks in that picture quite the ring as well. I put it on some 1/4" canvas belting on the steel stand, and that has deadened a lot of the ring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yesteryearforge Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 :) Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brasilikilt Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I don't have Anvilitis!! I only have 3, but DON'T tell anyone! It's just to get me through the day! The other 2 are only railroad track and a block of simple mild steel...so they don't count I tell you! I try really hard not to think of them, but still whilst I drive around I tend to take the long way home through industrial areas just to possibly catch a glimpse of a large chunk of steel that could be used as an anvil. I ran an errand for work the other day to pick up some steel cable, and they had a beautiful little 120 lb-er on a fabricated stand........I did very good and did not make an offer for it....I did still stare at it and run my fingers over those beautiful contours. I only stopped when they got mad at me for grabbing their hammer and ringing the anvil about 70 times. I have "recovered" from anvilitis It's a difficult process, but I feel much better being free from succulent ring of carefully tempered steel. Free am I from drooling at the sight of a chunk of railroad track or block of steel larger than 50 lbs. I can only take it day by day and pray that I don't go into full relapse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sask Mark Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I know what that smiley face means...it means that he will humiliate most of us if he posts pictures of his toys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edge9001 Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 well keep in mind anvil addiction and anvilosis/anvilitis are seperate things. the second and third are diseases thought to be contracted similarly to blacklung, the coal miners disease caught from breathing too much coal dust. these diseases are thought to be caught from a time spent around a vast number of different blacksmithing tools. unfortunatly like cocaine, blacksmithing addiction can be contracted(is that the right word?)with only one dose. in fact most cases of anvil addiction(or blacksmithing addiction) happen after only one time, the victims claim "I'll try it just this once, I will not become an addict." most do become addicts after the first try. ...Hello my name is Tim, I am an addict.....I know I am and I don't care. I will learn to cope and no 12 step programs will help me. I won't let it!!! Like my insanity I don't suffer from it, I enjoy every minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I had it but found a treatment that seems to work. I am down to 2 anvils with no side affects. It is amazing how 10 power hammers has helped. Carefull some times the cure is worse than the disease. have been stricken with sleeplessness as of late. Seems planing a 5lb air hammer build may be causing a fever. Wait...doesn't a power hammer require an anvil built into it?! Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I only have 2 anvils, and one is an ASO. Drooling on anvils is unhealthy - it can rust the anvil. I know nothing of the bulging of eyes and reflexive reaching to a wallet...my cash for another real anvil is in $20 denomination bills hidden from my wife in several places other than where she knows I hide my cash. Since I have an adequate allowance for most months, I may be able to afford another anvil when spring barn cleaning comes about in this area of Ohio. I also have learned what to look for in an anvil. My next anvil will be a 150# minimum, preferably closer to 250# but 300# would be too hard to move with the equipment I have and needing to move to the drive way every time. Clean edges and face are the primary metric, and I am prepared to walk away from something I am not 100% satisfied with. Since I have a nice Trenton 168# I can resist, and possibly instead apply the saved funds to upgrade the fireplace here to a wood burning EPA certified insert with blower. A workshop that is set up year round protected from the weather is a thought too. I may have experienced a short bout of anvilitis when I acquired my Trenton, as I fell in love the instant I saw it and could not argue the price, but instead said "load it up, here is your $200" even though the edges were obviously less than perfect... I am not suffering from anvilitis, but I really like my fire! Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edge9001 Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 Is there a cure for anvilphilia? what kind of "philia" are you refering to, as in hemophilia, or necrophilia? these would be two very different disease so tread carefully with the answer. lol are you hemerageing anvils or do you have a pathological need to love them? is the former then just bleed out, all over my front yard, if the second, I don't think I have the proper degrees to even consider the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divermike Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 up here in western NY, it seems every other auction has an anvil in it, so needless to say, I have several, but I have found a way to achieve some balance, find a newbie and give him a deal on the anvil you want him to have, I just sent a 300# down to a newbie, he really is happy with it, but wait, I just tracked down another one, maybe I'll go get it today, I seem to be running out of space though, that guy on youtube really has it bad, he makes em and does anvil shoots, wonder if he smiths at all!! any way, I'm down to about 10 or so now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvmikeray Posted October 11, 2010 Share Posted October 11, 2010 4 and crawling for a good deal on a 400 plus Wife thinks I'm crazy told her I'll pick the one(S) I like and sell the others ... maybe.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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