face condition

[fishing guru]

how can I tell the hardness off my anvils face and do little marks in the anvil face hurt anything

 

[DanielC]

Snag a 1" ball bearing and drop it from 10 inches with a tape measure and record where it bounced up to. If say it rebounded to 8", then that's 80% rebound. Hardness and rebound kind of go hand in hand. Little marks if not too bad can be left alone or depending on the thickness of the plate, be peined out or milled.

[ThomasPowers]

AKA the ball bearing test, there is a list of results over at anvilfire.com to give you an idea.

 

As for marks on the face:  Yes, NO, Maybe depending on information you didn't provide.  In general light marking is not an issue unless you are doing precision work like knifemaking.  As the thickness of the hardened face is the life of the anvil it is generally NOT suggested to grind or mill the face clean.  Just using the anvil will polish out a lot of markings over time---I have a lovely HB that was stored for 50 years in a damp shed with a heavy condensation cycle.  The entire face has light even pitting.  I wire brushed off the loose rust and steady use has just about polished out the sweet spot, The heel still shows the pitting.

[swedefiddle]

Normally an anvil work hardens. When you get a owwey from a mis-hit, a dent, take a round nose punch and work around the outside of the dent, slowly working toward the ridges. This will move the material back to where is was before the fateful WHACK. Don't be in a hurry, work around it and it will magically disappear.

 

Neil