OK, I have to ask. What is a bridle iron used for, and why would you need them by the hundred?

And thanks again for posting this originally, and again as a complete pdf file. That is why I love this forum, the free sharing of knowledge.

They were used to attach large timbers to brick walls and other timbers think pre structural steel era. I salvaged a few made from wrought iron from an old mill that made lace in my home town. They are quite intricate forgings with lots of bends they need to be precisely made and the double ones are forge welded from two pieces. The ones I have forged were made form fairly low quality material surprisingly.

Bridle irons, eh. Makes sense now. Insetting timbers into masonry leads to rot. The stand off would help prevent that.

Great catalogue....maybe late models???
Ken Sharabok identified mine as about a 1901 vintage....we have no idea how it ended up in Australia, maybe left behind by US Troops after the war.
I wouldn't part with it for love or money.

Just have to resurrect this thread to say thanks for posting this Timothy. My anvil is a HB from 1914, so it is nice to see the catalog as well.

Since I can't figure out how to download this catalogue or copy it, is there a place where it can be saved on IFI for easy retrieval?

In post #27 is a PDF file that can be downloaded (Thank's Farmall). The images and PDF file appear to be hosted on IFI already.

Phil

Thanks Phil, I missed that!

All I can say is WOW and Thank You!! Mine is a 125 #er and has a 7/8 hardy. Born in 1902 and is twice as old as me this year!!

Thank you very much for this resource!

Great calalog!  Thank you so much for making it available to us!

Great info for hay budden owners, had to dig awhile to find it, guess I will send it up top

This really should be pined to the top of the anvil section .

100% agree

Merry Christmas to all!  This evening I purchased a Hay Budden anvil without any large dings.  Under the logo is 208.  I also found under the horn in front the edge is   A20887  .  I was hoping some one could help with the age and share information about the quality?  I hope I paid a fair price at $395.00.

Thank you in-advance for your help and may you have a very happy New Year.

Merry Christmas to all!  This evening I purchased a Hay Budden anvil without any large dings.  Under the logo is 208.  I also found under the horn in front the edge is   A20887  .  I was hoping some one could help with the age and share information about the quality?  I hope I paid a fair price at $395.00.

Thank you in-advance for your help and may you have a very happy New Year.

 

According to AIA, your anvil was made in 1920.  The 208 should be the weight in lbs.  HB anvils are considered among the best forged anvils.  They were made in Brooklyn, NY.  At just under $2/lb, if the anvil is in good shape, you did very well. 

Thanks for the info & Happy holidays     

@ Timothy Miller, I just printed the HB catalog from the pdf posted above..  Using the "BOOKLET" setting on my printer (and carefully following the instructions) I got a nice copy of your catalog.  Thanks so much for sharing.  Alan

This weekend I purchased a well worn 233 Hey Budden. The face is depressed about 3/16 in the center 1/3 all the way across. It is usable as is with good ring and rebound but it is not flat at all. It appears to be very old and beat up all around. I am considering buildup of the face to make it flat, but seing as how it is wrought iron should I weld on it? My initial research indicates it can be welded with ordinary low carbon steel rod. Any advice on that?

Petehdgs, thank you for updating this post and bringing it back to the front of the index.  I had no idea it was out there.  I have 190# HB that like most would not sell for love nor $$$.

This weekend I purchased a well worn 233 Hey Budden. The face is depressed about 3/16 in the center 1/3 all the way across. It is usable as is with good ring and rebound but it is not flat at all. It appears to be very old and beat up all around. I am considering buildup of the face to make it flat, but seing as how it is wrought iron should I weld on it? My initial research indicates it can be welded with ordinary low carbon steel rod. Any advice on that?

 

There are a number of posts on IFI about resurfacing an anvil. It is way more complicated than what you are proposing but it can be done. I would do a lot of research before you go after the anvil with welding rod and ruin a usable anvil. 

Do not build up the face to make it flat. Do not machine the surface to make it flat. Flat is not important. Hardness of the top plate is. The top plate is *not* wrought iron. It is high-carbon steel that has been heat treated. Any welding on that will ruin the heat treatment near the weld. As Fatfudd says, do your research. You will find that unless the anvil is in truly horrible shape, you're better off using it as-is.

Thank you all for your help. I'll use it as is.

The later variety of Hay Buddens are solid steel from the waist up..  In the past I have completely heated the face and reforged the corners and leveled the face and then re hardened the complete anvil with good results ending up with essentially a new anvil..

 

 

This is the way they did it in the olden days and the reason I really love the later HB anvils (more modern shape).. You don't have to worry about face separation in the redressing process..

 

Worse case is when they have cut into the face with a cutting torch.. No good way to fix it if the scars are to deep.

 

It's a big process but to save some of these from being ruined with hardfacing or milling it's the best way...

 

Last one I did was nearly 20 years ago now but the process remains the same..

Odd. I was searching for a Hay Budden catalog last week and missed the link to the PDF. All I could see were the non-working images. So I Googled “Hay Budden catalog” and found what is the same exact PDF someone saved here after putting the individual page scans into a single PDF on the Blacksmiths Association of Missouri site.

It may have been the same person uploading the PDF to both sites and creating PDFs is easy enough, plus modern blacksmiths seem to be keen to share things relating to the craft, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem even if someone had taken a file from here and posted it to another blacksmithing site, especially if they had noted where it came from. 

But sometimes we go a little too far. The most obvious example I can think of off the top of my head is  “Anvils in America”.  Perhaps this is just something only seen in old posts, but one poster consulting AIA to answer another poster’s question about an anvil they have had always seemed to me the same as stealing from Mr. Postman. The person with the question will likely never buy his book. Were it an out of print book it would be a different matter. Plus it really isn’t all that expensive.