Thomas Powers Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique (TPAAAT)

[Frosty]

It takes time to learn to do things for yourself instead of having an adult do it for you.

Getting the point is down the road a ways here.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

When a village raises a child; they expect to get a decent useful adult as an addition to the village out of the deal.

Sometimes I feel like things are bein "offshored" to the internet nowadays often without any evidence based data on if the websites produces good results.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

That’s a good point about anvils in cities I hadn’t thought of that Thomas!

Anvils tend to have a natural migration pattern that coincides with humans, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever located an anvil anywhere there wasn’t humans nearby, so it would make since that there would be more anvils were there is more humans lol, 

that being said I did read a story in AInA about an anvil found on a mountain,

I believe my area still has a lot of blacksmith stuff because we didn’t get electric power here till sometime in the 50s so there was still alot of people working without power tools for a long time after that, I know pretty much every farm had a small smithy setup as well as there was alot a fully operational blacksmith shops up till the 1970s, after that it died down and all this stuff got stuffed in old barns.
 
Well Until I came along and started dragging them all out of their hibernation  lol

 

[ThomasPowers]

A lot got abandoned during the Dust Bowl when "Okies" loaded up the truck and headed to California.

Anvils do seem to be tied to humans; but they also can be found where humans *were* as well as *are*.

My Mother comes from down near Altus, OK, USA and she grew up with coal oil lamps.  They had a wind generator to charge glass batteries so they could listen to the radio, only electricity they used.  The oil field pumps would work from hit&miss engines in a pumphouse and transfer power through rods running to the various donkey pumps.

[Michael]

There's an old electric motor repair shop in downtown San Francisco, they fixed up a blower motor for me once. 160 # Hay Budden in the back on the floor. Used for driving armatures into bearings, or something like that. Been offering waist high blocks of steel to replace it for a couple of years now. I'd stop in every couple of months to see if he wants to trade or sell it.

[ThomasPowers]

I bought my first 6" postvise from a car repair business shutting down auction---the ad said they had been in the same building since 1918; so I knew they had a complete smithing set up at one time---also wood working from repairing the old bodies.

I met a fellow who had been an orthopedic smith at a hospital in Columbus OH during WWII.  Had a great time talking with him about his experiences 50 years later! (I later checked with a maintenance person who told me that that anvil was still in one of the hospital's sub basements; but I never managed to track it down any further.)

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

When the dust bowl and Great Depression hit,     
      my family stayed here in Oklahoma,      My great great grandpa built a dugout shack in the side of a hill and they lived in there for years until they could get back on their feet again financially. I think my dad may have pictures somewhere of it and the old homestead.
     Eventually they recovered and he was able to build up a ranch where they trained ox teams for plowing and raised horses. 

[ThomasPowers]

My Mother's Great? Uncles were Sooners and lived in a soddie for years.  Her family stayed on their land during the Dust Bowl and a lot of tales she has about those times.  I believe one of her cousins has the family anvil as he is still farming the family land.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Yard sales, I always stop at them and look around and talk with the folks running it. Mostly nothing I want is out on display. I always say I was hoping they had some old tools like an anvil or other stuff used by blacksmith's. I always explain that I do some hobby blacksmithing.

One fellow said follow me and just inside the garage door was a 106 pound Hay Budden. It followed me home for $1.88 a pound.

At another place I asked basically the same question and the lady said there is a bunch of old rusty tools in the shed out back, go have a look. Inside I found a lot of large open end wrenches, hammers, anvil hardy tools, hoof nippers and tongs which I loaded into a box and carried them back to her. I asked how much she wanted. She said her grandfather was a horseshoer and would take $5.00 for the lot and was happy someone would put her grandads stuff back to work.

Another time I was in the local hardware store/lumber yard that has been the family business since the mid 1850s. The owner is also a world class knife maker and we were talking about making knives. He makes his knives using stock removal and I asked him if he ever forged any of his blades. He said the north lumber yard had a blacksmith shop but he never tried forging any blades. He said stop out there to see if any stuff was still in the old shop which has pretty much fallen down. Unfortunately the scrap thieves had beat me to it but I found a Champion Lancaster blower buried under some stuff. He knew I was in the process of building a coal forge and he donated the blower to the cause. I cleaned it up, oiled it and turned a new wood handle for it and it's still in use 30+ years later on the forge I built.

So the moral to this story is you have to talk to people. I still do only not as much as before and occasionally come up with a gem or two.

[ThomasPowers]

Talk to *everyone*; if you only talk to people trying to make as much money as possible selling anvils then you are unlikely to find a good one cheap! OTOH there are a lot of "family anvils" out there that the current owner would just be tickled pink to have it go back into service with a *real* smith!

[WillO]

Used your method.
 

Have to tell SOMEBODY:

First stop - Dad (He is 81).

Me: "Dad...do you know of anyone that has an Anvil they don't need?"

Dad: "Yup, there is one in the barn at the ranch in East Texas"

Me: " Can I have it?"

Dad: "Yup"

Dad: "You know...that was Uncle Collie's Anvil. He was a Farrier in WW 1 and that was his Anvil."

Me: "xxxx xxxx, ...are you serious?"

The anvil turned out to be a 125# "Made in Sweden" SIS CO  "Superior". Edges are toast, <was> rusty xx xxxx.

Vinegar bathed it, rubbed with Baking Soda,  rubbed with boiled linseed oil.

Came here looking for stand ideas - prolly just finish off with a oak stump.

THANKS!

 

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard WillO, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a better chance of meeting up with members living within visiting distance. 

A 125lb. Sisco eh? Swedish cast steel anvils are about as good as anvil's get. Edge chipping is common the faces are typically hard to the point of brittle so you don't want to miss many blows on the edges.  

I have a 125lb. Soderfors. Sisco was cast by the Soderfors foundry it's one of many names requested by the retailer. 

How about some pictures? We LOVE pictures, especially of anvils and I'm a serious fan of Swedish cast steel anvils. Have you found it's birth year? Mine was cast in 1926.

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

Dear Will,

Very cool.  Finding tools with a family connection is always very cool.  Are there any other old tools such as tongs and hammers in that old barn? 

As Frosty says, if you put your general location in your profile it will help refine answers to any queries you have.  A surprising number are geography dependent.

Welcome aboard from 7500' (and spring snow showers) in SE Wyoming.  I hope you find the craft as rewarding as many of us have over the years.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[FlatLiner]

My 125 lb Sisco was a ranch anvil from Wyoming. Its edges were chipped up also but it's my favorite anvil. You can't ask for a better one in my opinion, especially one with a family connection.

[Frosty]

I just remembered your original question for us. A newly acquired Swedish anvil tends to excite me even if someone else acquired it.

You'll find putting a Swedish anvil on wood will result in a deafening ring, seriously I used to wear plugs and muffs and a couple missed blows would still make my ears ring. No fooling LOUD!

My old wood stand was rotting so I made her a steel tripod stand. I made an angle iron rim flange up that fit her foot pretty snugly and wedge her in securely with tong and hammer racks. Hammers on the close side tongs on the far side.

The best part next to being an excellent stand is how it quieted down the ring. She still sings but it's not dangerously loud. The mild steel stand damps the hardened steel anvil's reverberations so her voice damps immediately. 

Frosty The Lucky.

The first pic is my Soderfors mortised into the old wood block stand.

The second pic is my Trenton in her brand new tripod stand. The hammer and tong racks wedge tightly enough to pick anvil and stand up with the engine hoist. That's how it's rigged in the pic ready to load in the pickup.

The last pic is a close up one of the wedge in place racks.

[ThomasPowers]

Farrier anvils tend to have bad edges especially when they did a lot of cold showing.  Not a problem for most smithing and if you do need a better edge---make a block for the hardy hole that you can use in 4 positions with a different radius on each!

Also please remember that anvils are not supposed to have sharp edges; I've seen a lot of anvils seriously damaged because someone thought they should have sharp edges and either welded them without the proper procedure (Gunther/Schuler); or even *milled* down the face destroying the usability!

"Practical Blacksmithing";Volume 1, published in 1889; page 110: "For my own part I am satisfied not only that the sharp edges are useless, but that they are also destructive of good work. I cannot account for their existence except as a relic of a time  when the principles of forging were but little understood. I want both edges of my anvil rounded, not simply for a part of their length, but for their whole length."

Now what's with the  "Swedish cast steel anvils for ranch/farrier work"?   I've seen more mentions of them here in the west and even had a Rancher give me one; than in other places where you would think they were easier to source back in the day!

[Frosty]

You see a lot of anvils from the Soderfors foundry in Alaska and NW Canada too, I ran across a bunch in Yukon just talking to people. I don't know about other places in Canada. 125lbs. is an excellent size for a general purpose anvil and light enough to not kill you shipping.

Will needs to post a pic, he THINKS the edges are toast but that's a subjective opinion from a beginner so . . . ? I'm not dissing you Will but you really don't know what makes a good anvil and as Thomas said above edges can be replaced with a simple bottom tool, a steel block with a square shank that fits the hardy hole. EZ. PZ. 

Besides edge chipping is common on Swedish anvils, especially ones used by farriers. The chipped edges on mine were all put there by the farrier I bought it from in the two years he used it.

Let us have a look, one pic of the edges from each side so we can evaluate them. You might be able to just work around them or maybe a little disk grinder time to radius them is all it'll take. 

WhatEVER you do, do NOT get in a hurry to "repair or restore" it! More anvils have been ruined by professional welders who didn't know how to weld on an anvil face. It's not just a matter of taking an arc welder to it and grinding!

Frosty The Lucky.

[ArcherKN24]

On 3/22/2022 at 10:28 PM, Frosty said:

You'll find putting a Swedish anvil on wood will result in a deafening ring, seriously I used to wear plugs and muffs and a couple missed blows would still make my ears ring. No fooling LOUD!

You wanna quiet down a loud ringing anvil?  The old retired smith that showed me how to move metal always this.  "When you don't want an anvil to sing, muffle it's mouth with chain"!  Wrap some heavy chain around the waist of the anvil maybe 4 or 5 times, and any kind of ringing should be gone.

[George N. M.]

Placing a large magnet under the heel with also reduce the ring quite a bit, or at least it does with my Peter Wright.  IMO, a neater solution than a chain wrap.  It may or may not work on all anvils.  "Mileage may vary."

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Another sure fired way to stop the ring, is to set the anvil base in cheap latex calking compound, between it and the stand.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails.

 

[Glenn]

Bedding the anvil down in sand kills the ring and the anvil height is still adjustable. 

[ArcherKN24]

Oooo, I like that one!

[Shainarue]

My stand was originally filled with sand and anvil sitting on top - but the anvil kept creeping to a slant as I hammered over time. So I removed the sand, added two 2x4s on end at the right height for the anvil to sit on, then poured the sand back in. Worked well but then I killed the ringing even further by adding a piece of angle iron over the end of each foot - wedged between the box & the foot. Now the only ringing I get is on the horn - and it's not nearly as bad as it would be without all the other stuff. I keep thinking I'm gonna bring a magnet out and try that theory - but I keep forgetting, lol