Thinking about repairing this anvil

[Timothy Miller]

I have had this anvil for about a year. It belonged to a dear friend who passed away shortly before I purchased the anvil. He was the first person to teach me something about forging. From him I learned how to light a fire and draw a taper. I also drove him crazy because I was a pain in the butt asking him for tools and asking him all sorts of questions. I think he just wanted to play with his tools and be left alone. So I have this anvil that I know was very important to him and I want to use it. It is also a fairly rare anvil from what I understand. It is an Insonora anvil made by fisher. For the most part is is in reasonably good shape but one of the edges is badly torch gouged. I am a professional full time blacksmith and I don't want to use an anvil in this condition it is just not acceptable for the kind of work I do. Also I like the layout of this anvil mainly the shape of the horn and location of the hardie hole. I have welded a few anvils in the past following the Gunther method and they turned out well. These were all forged anvils though not cast. As far as I can see the damage is only to the face. I also know the that the faces of these anvils were O1. Any advise for repairing this anvil. I have a fully equipped shop, I am a good welder and I can afford proper materials. If I can't repair it with out damaging I won't do it. I seek your input on repairing this anvil.

For some reason I cant attach pictures :(

[arftist]

Just guessing Tim, but IMHO, fixing a fisher is a lot riskier than fixing a wrought. Not so much the cast iron, as that I don't know how the steel is bonded to the iron, so I would worry about it seperating during or after the welding operation. Is there any way you could make it servicable by grinding off the gouges, a little custom radious perhaps?