Questions about my Peter Wright

[NamNwod]

Bought this anvil early last spring and haven't done much with it as of yet. I was wondering if I should clean it up at all or remove the rust. I plan on getting into some small knife smithing and cold forging steel plate.

The top plate looks to be well used, and has a decent sized divot in it, as well as many small indents. I'm reluctant to take a grinder to it and smooth it out. Should I just run it as is?

Sorry if the pictures don't show enough, I could take more if need be.

Thanks for any wisdom you guys could share, i'm a complete newbie at this.

[ThomasPowers]

Generally we suggest someone use the anvil for a year and then decide what they want to do with it.

 

Why do you want to cold forge steel plate?  Even in the renaissance they tried to work steel plate hot whenever possible!

 

(modern armourers who work a lot of cold steel plate often find that their joints are shot from RSI compared to people working hot).

[NamNwod]

My concern was if the indents could affect the piece at all while forging.

I'll only be using 18g steel sheets to start off, which seems workable enough without heat. I won't be getting into anything too complicated with it immediately.

[ThomasPowers]

What are you trying to do with the cold sheet metal? The answer depends on what you are not telling us.  Sort of like asking a question about a car and mentioning you want to race it without saying whether it's drag racing, formula 1, stock, etc.

 

I would check the hardness of the face as that does seem a bit abused.

[NamNwod]

I mean to say I would like to attempt making some plate armor, sorry for the confusion. Something mostly for show. I have read that marring on the hammer or shaping surface can work its way into the steel while shaping it. This is where the indent concern comes in.

The anvil seems to have decent rebound, but I lack referance to how it should be. Decent ring to it as well. How could I go about testing the face?

[the iron dwarf]

for armour an anvil is used less than stakes.

on another forum I use there is a thread by a master known as Mac 'dusting off the cobwebs'

the thread is here http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=169445.

the surface of your anvil is a bit rough but a years use will cure most of that.

a lot of work on armour is done cold but not all and cold worked parts may need anealing from time to time

[Everything Mac]

I was given the same advice over a year ago regarding my own Peter Wright. I used it for a year and found that most of the time the small dents I had, did not affect what I was working on. But very occasionally they did so I had the face professionally skimmed. 

 

I'd stand by using the anvil for a year to see if it does affect your work. I reckon that anvil is in relatively good condition and would be perfectly fine for most of your work. 

 

I'm not really in to armour making so forgive me if I'm wrong but do they not use a collection of stake tools for the majority of the shaping? If so then the condition of your anvils face (which would be used purely to bash out a rough shape on hot steel) is a moot point. 

 

The smoothness of your stakes would be more of an issue though, 

 

All the best 

Andy

[ThomasPowers]

Very little of armour making is done an an anvil face.  Generally it is done on stakes and they and the hammer should be polished.  I assume you are looking at armourarchive.org for armour making tips?

 

See the ball bearing test at anvilfire.com for rebound testing---but it requires a flat face for good results

[NamNwod]

Thanks for the responses. I have been to armourarchive.org for some reading, and have also been looking into some videos and other links. The face gets used sparingly, but my worry was if that short bit of work would add extra things to be smoothed out later. The anvil will hopefully see a lot of work once I get a forge up and going.

Thanks all

[the iron dwarf]

just get a smooth block for flat work, a 6" cube or some square section ( historically anvils were mostly not shaped like the london pattern, most were just chunks of metal or even rocks sometimes ).