SReynolds Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 You never knew this but, it is quite obvious that some of these old anvils we love are made from CAST IRON. I collect Columbian Vises and found this anvil ad linked w/Columbian Vise ad. It just so happens that the two Am. Trenton anvils pictured, I have.Odd/ Funny..... The Am Trento anvil is forged from solid ingot steel. (Ingot is a solid piece of cast steel) So it is like saying frozen tundra, cuz tundra means frozen.........anyone seen a non solid ingot????? Anyway, these are faced w/high grade tool steel. These are .66/pound The other brand pictured is the familiar Arm & Hammer brand Vulcan. Advertised as one piece tool steel face welded to grey cast iron body. The ad continues to mention the fact that cast iron body is of greater strength and life than a similar wrought anvil. Now we know. The ad would not lie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judson Yaggy Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I respectfully disagree. Advertisements both today and of yesteryear often are purposely misleading, exaggerate, or outright lie. While Trentons are top notch anvils, Vulcans in general are widely known to be on the lower end of quality for "real" anvils. Yes, some Vulcans are better than some lower quality wrought iron/steel faced anvils, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. As to the material "cast steel" in American antiquity, it was a different product than what we would consider cast steel today. It was not melted and poured into a finished product as cast steel is today. It started life as a cast iron type of product, then underwent further processing to remove carbon. Once the carbon content was reduced to the point where the metal was forgeable it was hammered and rolled into usable sized stock that tool and anvil makers then forged further into final products. The name "cast steel" is a little misleading when you see it stamped into antique tools like chisels, etc. Think of it as a general material name rather than a description of a manufacturing process when dealing with old tools. Modern cast steel on the other hand DOES mean melted and poured, so yes it is a little confusing. Perhaps it would be better to say that some of the steel in anvils was cast iron at one point in the material's manufacturing process. For further reading on the antique manufacture and use of cast steel I recommend the books "Art of the Edge Tool" and "Steel and Toolmaking Strategies and Techniques before 1870" both by HG Brack of the Davistown Museum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Gotta few issues there; first of all *none* of the anvils I love have anything to do with cast iron save the Fishers. Now several of them are cast steel or have cast steel components as part of their make up; but cast steel and cast iron are different fishes indeed! Now an Arm & Hammer Vulcan is like saying A Chevy Ford. Arm & Hammer anvils were made by Columbus Anvil and Forging co, Columbus OH; Vulcans were made by the Illinois Iron and Bolt Company Carpentersville Illinois. Both their trade marks were an arm and hammer but the companies were different! As for seeing a non-solid steel ingot, everyone that's taken a good MatSci class on metals has seen examples of piping and porosity! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Sigh. Where to begin. Ingots of solid steel are different than wrought iron, with silica bands alternating with iron. Arm and Hammer is a brand. Vulcan is a brand. The Vulcan logo includes an arm and hammer within a wreath of the name in an oval cartouche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Yaggy; you are getting a bit astray on the "cast steel" as well. Cast steel, the material, originally started as wrought iron that had be carburized into blister steel. As such it had a higher carbon content but also the impurities found in wrought iron. Starting with Huntsman in the 1700's blister steel was melted in crucibles separating the slag and homogenizing the carbon content and then cast into ingots which were then forged to help reduce grain size. During the 1800's there was quite a "contest" on who could cast the largest cast steel ingot---"The Arms of Krupp" describes where there was a cry of foul at one exhibition---that the ingot must be cast iron; so they chiseled a piece off and forged it to prove it was steel! Somehow I believe you were adding in puddling a process for turning cast iron into wrought iron and the Bessemer process for taking cast iron and making mild steel from it. Note that both processes tended to produce low carbon materials as it was hard to judge carbon content *in process*. Adding carbon back into the Bessemer melt to bring the carbon content back up was also used. For folks wanting an in depth education on early industrial revolution steels I suggest "Steelmaking Before Bessemer: Vol 1 Blister Steel and Vol 2 Crucible Steel" K.C.Barraclough Note that even as late as the ACW steel cost as much as 5 to 6 times as much as wrought iron and so was used sparingly Anvil faces were a pretty massive use of it in the early 1800's and were welded up of several plates. Going to a single plate face was one of the bragging points of an anvil manufacturer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 I can't, for the life of me, understand why the steel industry makes CAST IRON first. Then they make steel from that! Cast iron is not found in the ground, it must be made. Why load iron up with 6-8% carbon, then burn it out to make steel. (????????) Used to be, they made wrought. Then made steel from that. It is backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 I can't, for the life of me, understand why the steel industry makes CAST IRON first. Then they make steel from that! Cast iron is not found in the ground, it must be made. Why load iron up with 6-8% carbon, then burn it out to make steel. (????????) Used to be, they made wrought. Then made steel from that. It is backwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Because it's *cheaper* that way; blast furnaces pre pollution controlls days were pretty simple to make and use; it's pretty hard to heat ore in a carbon monoxide rich atmosphere and *not* have it pick up carbon; getting rid of the carbon is fairly simple too but it does make for a two step process: Ore to cast iron, cast iron to steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy Ubu Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Rock, paper, scissors...cast doesn't fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Knowing that Fisher uses a cast iron base, and that Fisher anvils are the undisputed king of anvils, it's safe to say that cast iron is best. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be on the greatest anvil ever made by the hands of man. Seems perfectly reasonable. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Sort of like saying you could put top of the line sneakers on me and I'd be a basketball star.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 If they were made by Fisher.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I think this was a Friday trolling sort of post to begin with..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobody Special Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Nope. My william foster's the best. Period. And ya can't tell me different. Also, I've seen molten ingots of steel. Does that count as not solid? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Ingot: A casting of simple shape suitable for hot working or re-melting Metals Handbook Desk Edition, ASM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LastRonin Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 And here I thought the OP was done 'tongue-in-cheek'... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 "Fisher anvils are the undisputed king of anvils". While I love my 300lb Fisher I'm not sure that I agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 "Fisher anvils are the undisputed king of anvils". While I love my 300lb Fisher I'm not sure that I agree If it wasn't true, they wouldn't have an eagle on them. I read that on the interwebs! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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