My steel supplier has some NICE forks but they are $100 a set. My forge would certainly heat it.

I have a fitted one inch downsizer made for the anvil. I think I'm going to shim it from the underside to keep it stable (welding the shims in place) and then lightly tack weld all four sides to the underside of the anvil. I know a couple of yall just went into orbit, but hear me out. It's on the underside, if it doesn't work or I see where improvements can be made, I can cut it out easily, it will be solid, it will not affect face plate temper at all, and I don't have to "rig" anything. (The face plate has about 2 inches of material between it and the bottom of the hardy hole. I don't think a tack weld is going to send heat up that far.)

Thoughts??? Anybody want to roast me?

That is what I was going to recommend you do, don't tack it weld it all around with the anvil warm. The tacks will break with use. If it were mine I would run the sleeve up to the bottom of your tool steel face try to weld it there as well.
Rob

Dave - a wedge setup will work just fine

With your anvil being cast iron bodied make sure to read up on welding cast iron. Most cast iron will not weld just like mild steel

Before everybody gets started with all the preheat and post heat and nickle rod instructions here I`d like to invite those folks up to Maine to see first hand the cast iron vice I welded back together with 7018 rod using an AC machine that is still going strong despite 20 years of hard use. That 20 years included use by 2 teen age sons.
I say ,go for it David. The worst thing that a few tack welds might do is break off a small area of cast iron from underneath. The resulting extra clearance MAY cause your bottom tools to wobble around a bit though. :o

I welded some cast iron up a while back....trying to remember what it was! Oh yea! I busted my already cracked roller bearing guide assembly on the band saw when I was adjusting the roller bearings. The little bugger broke into three pieces. I migged it all back together, redrilled the holes, and ground it down so that you can't tell a difference between the good one and the repaired one. That was 6 months ago.
It certainly is a bit different to weld on!

I may get to it today. It's rainy here so I'll be in the shop.

The idea is to get *used* forks as damaged ones tend to be discarded as liability concerns don't alloy most larger corps to re-use them. Buying them new just to modify---GGiH!

I won't roast you for your idea on how to modify *YOUR* anvil as I don't see it causing any problems and even if it "fails" shouldn't affect the re-sale price of the anvil the "evil" being at the underside of the heel.