JHM Competitor

[kayakersteve]

This is the big boy of the JHM line up. These are ductile iron anvils made in the USA. THE competitor model weighs 260 pounds and handles my use/abuse well. I bought it used from a farrier and he had radiused the edges nicely. I have no complaints other than a fat horn. The stand adds another 100 pounds so this set up is very stable and is also quiet.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I have one of their 125# Journeyman farrier anvils. I like it, and have used the turning cams for bending bars.

[petere76]

Gents,

At one point there was a Hofi designed anvil under development. Looked similar to a German pattern. Ever heard if the line was produced?

Peter

[Charles R. Stevens]

It was, dont know if it is in production still. Seem to remember the early ones were fabricated by Mr, Hofi's shop and atleast one production run in cast steel was made. Google "Hofi anvil" "hofi style anvil" etc. that should get you some where
Like big gun, I have a couple of the smaller anvils in the line, I find the Jorneyman to be exelent for turning because for the long horn and heal, but it has a small waist. I would lone to have c competitor for the heavy work.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

For heavy work I have a 260# Fisher, and a 306# Sodefors. The JHM is nice as it is more mobile, and still has some nice heft through the middle. I have also used it as a loaner. The JHM has more of a blacksmith shape than many of the current farrier anvils out there. I am surprised at how thin the heel is on the Competitor model. It doesn't have the taper the Journeyman has. I got mine through a Craigslist deal from a retired farrier. Other than the ring, I have no complaints about it.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Kayakersteve, are those guard bunnies under the workbench?

[petere76]

Charles,

Thanks for the input.

I might shop for a larger shop anvil. I have 4 anvils now, 2 PWs an American and a hey Buden. . The are all portable and come in around 150 lbs or less. I was lookimg at a nimba a or a pendinghaus. 2k isn't exactly a deal right now.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I believe the most I have paid so far is $1.25 a pound. The Fisher was $250, and the Sodefors was $200, the JHM was a package with a gas forge, tools, etc for $250. I have six anvils in all. You just have to keep your eyes open at all times.

[Jonathan William Perry]

How's the the rebound of the competitor could someone do the ball bearing test and report back please I'm Very interested in this anvil. 

[kayakersteve]

I did it right before I purchased and was very good, but dont rember the %.  If i get time, will repeat.

[Jonathan William Perry]

Thank you so much 

[Jonathan William Perry]

Does anyone have an answer on the rebound percentage of this anvil?

[Judson Yaggy]

Please excuse me if this answer is off base, but in your few posts you come across as a beginner.  

JHMs are pretty good but not great anvils.  My good friend/neighbor and full time farrier has one that I have played around on.  Rather than obsessing over rebound, buy one and get to work.  Or buy something else and get to work.  Whatever it is it will serve you just fine, especially as a beginner.  Rebound percentage on anything that is more than crappy cast iron is a marginal measure of quality until you have spent 2 to 3 THOUSAND hours developing the necessary skills to be a marginal blacksmith.  Remember that it is generally accepted that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field of study.  That's about 5 years of full time study/work.  

The other factors besides rebound you should be cultivating (and be as concerned about as anvil rebound) include but are not limited to hammer control, endurance, muscle memory, proper anvil mounting, basic metallurgy, fire management skills, proper vise and file usage, tong making/acquisition, proper use of safety gear, etc.  Should I go on?  Get all of those skills from practicing on whatever anvil and you could turn out good work on a rock.  

[Buster Bolster]

I just bought a competitor a couple of weeks ago to replace a very good but too small vintage 125 pound swedish pattern anvil. 

When I was trying to find information on it, this post came up in my google searches, and like everyone, I was concerned about whether or not I'd wish to have found the perfect vintage anvil that was small enough that I could lift it onto an anvil stand and get it home, but big enough to so toolmaking work (no power hammer or press here, just hand hammering).

The anvil rings, like mentioned above. It's not chisel hardness, but it's hard enough. I've put a couple of hours of work on it and will never be the type who is on the anvil for 50 hours a week worrying about rebound - it works fine for me and we'll see how it holds up. I should ever be so lucky to claim to have worn something out in honest use -I'm satisfied. 

That said, I saw someone claim 80-85 rebound and the size is more important as I was pummeling my smaller anvil. If someone will let me know what size of hardened ball bearing to buy to test rebound, i'll get one or some and report back with what I find.

I found suitable vintage anvils at a distance, and overpriced ones local and just ran out of steam - I want to make stuff more than hunt and hunt and hunt to acquire the best and never really be able to justify the difference in the first place. 

By the way - I know this is a relatively old topic, but since I was directed to this thread about 5 times when looking around for information, I'd be glad to actually provide actual information so that people like me see answers to the questions. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Buster Bolster

[Frosty]

Funny meeting you here! Get a few 1/2" bearing balls it'll tell you all you need and fit in your pocket. Why a few? If/when one takes a bad bounce it WILL disappear under something somewhere. For some reason guys suggest a 1" ball but that's excessive and can dent a softer face which might have you buying a lesser anvil because you damaged it. Hmmm?

So, what don't you like about your 125lb. Swede? I have a 125lb. Soderfors that's my go to anvil for everything it's more effective on larger stock than my 206lb. Trenton and it's a top tier anvil. That's just me, everybody's mileage varies. 

I'm not a fan of "vintage" anvils just because, it's a Craigslist buzz word to add to the asking price. I look for quality and condition not age or rust. There are some anvils being cast today that are as good as almost any olde timey ones.

What kind of stand do you use?

When you say "replace" your swede are you letting it go?!? 

Frosty The Lucky. 

[Buster Bolster]

Yes on the anvil, though I have to admit I'm assuming it's swede. I'm stretching steel with a 4 pound hammer, and assume it could be 5 in the future, and the stand under the old anvil is a bundle of endgrain oriented 2x10s all fixed together (not just loose), so it's similar in effect to a log. A larger and dead flat surface will help me greatly to get more accurate chisels off of the anvil and do less follow up grinding. 

I seriously doubt I would've ever damaged the old anvil even with a 4 pound cross pein hammer - it was chained to the stand  - more a matter of harshness. The old anvil was almost flat and I figured if I'm going to trade out, it'd be good to do it while it's in relatively good shape. 

So "assumed swede" i'm mentioning because I got it from an anvil flipper who was a smith, less than $3 a pound - so I wasn't exactly taken advantage of, but he referred to it as a soderfors anvil both in writing and when telling me "it's a 125 pound soderfors anvil". At the time, I was less interested in it being branded and more interested in using it to pein cold metal making dovetailed infill planes, and that never materialized. So here we are, I have an anvil that is probably a soderfors pattern copy and the casting has no markings on it that I've ever seen.

Yes on the parting - but I'll probably sell it locally because I don't know what it is. I just know that it's pretty good, it's almost flat, it's got a lot of miles left in it, but I don't think it would be worth trying to explain it well enough to ship since I'm now a guy with two anvils and not someone who has seen 75 and put 5000 hours of time in. 

Since I don't know that much about anvils, I'm surprised someone would make an anvil as legitimate as it is and not mark it. it's not pitted to death and if it even had a light stamp or casting letters in it, they would still bet there. 

Thanks for the tip on the bearings. I noticed that sellers like to list them in groups of 10 or 50. If one bounces away in my shop (full between the grinding, woodworking and forging stuff), there's probably a 50% chance that it goes behind or under something I don't feel like moving. 

I do look forward to seeing what the rebound is like between the old and new. Subjectively, the little one does have a bit better rebound than the JHM, but the bearing will tell me a lot better if my perception is right and if so, how much. 

[Frosty]

My "Soderfors Sorceress #5" rebounds right around 95%. Soderfors is is a foundry and only cast anvils as a very minor sideline, I'd be willing to bet they poured anvils so as not to waste what was left in the crucible. They would cast whatever you wanted on anvils and other stuff or plain, they didn't even care about putting their name on it so long as it was paid for. Soderfors isn't the only steel foundry in Sweden either, Kohlswa (sp?) is another biggy that makes (made?) top shelf anvils along with everything else.

Hang onto your Swede until you're sure you like the new anvil better.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Buster Bolster]

Actually, figuring out what it is (the old one) is a real chore. Someone cleaned it in the past and it had a combination of rust and scale that obscured the letters and they are either rusted off or covered over. there's little pinholes all over the side of the casting from some kind of rust, unless the anvils were cast, and if it's swedish anything, it might have been marked Columbian, Soderfors, Sweden - but there is so little there and too much glare in pictures that I can't manage to see it. 

I'll rely on the ball bearings when they come in the mail to guess. 

Maybe the guy was telling the truth - it has two pritchels which show up as far as I can see in pictures only or mostly on the anvils branded Columbian. I know so little about anvils, but enough on the woodworking side to know stuff in the early to mid 1900s in the US could've literally been from a better international brand than the "along for the ride" domestic distributor, but Columbian probably marketed machinist and blacksmith stuff. They definitely made woodworking vises. 

I like the new anvil better because of the size factor, but it will take more marks from misstrikes over the years. I don't make many of those because nothing I'm doing is demanding - I'm drawing out bar and doing some rough shaping into a blank for chisels most of the time with the occasional knife here and there, repetitive and routine. the competitor has a big pritchel hole compared to the ones on my older anvil, so I will need to make some kind of separate block as some of my chisel types have bolsters forge welded on and they're fitted onto the chisel tang as a blank before forge welding them on. 

I think the older anvil is a "better" anvil so to speak, but the new one will suit my needs better. I can hold on to the old one for now, though - an unused 125 pound anvil doesn't take much space. 

[Frosty]

Like I suggested above hang onto the Swede till you're sure, rushing only guarantees one thing, mistakes become permanent more quickly. 

If its still covered with rust ad scale an electrolysis will return the oxidized steel to as cast without losing any to brushing, chipping, etc. I use about a 3% phosphoric acid solution but dilute Naval Jelly works well too, it has a wetting agent which helps more than a couple drops of Dawn dishwashing detergent does. If on the other hand you have a source of Sodium Laurel Sulfate a few drops is THE most common wetting agent I'm aware of.

Frosty The Lucky.

[FlatLiner]

I second Frosty's advice. I also have a 125 lb swedish anvil and it also out performs my bigger heavier anvils. It is my go to anvil. I do use my bigger heavier anvils for different things but my gocti anvil that gets the most use is the 125 lb Swedish.

[Frosty]

"Gocti" anvil? Is that a typo or a brand I've never heard of?

I use my heavier anvil for bending in the forks mostly, the weight helps preventing the anvil sliding on the floor. The Trenton is still a top tier anvil, just not my favorite.

Frosty The Lucky.

[FlatLiner]

Goti lol, I meant go to anvil. My bad, I should have double checked before posting.

[Buster Bolster]

I haven't dumped the other anvil yet. It's still on the floor waiting for me [inappropriate language removed].

Given what you guys say, it'll be interesting. The sound and feel is definitely there for high hardness - it's too bad the mark isn't more clear. 

what's written on this one could match, but there's so little of my mark left due to deep corrosion that an attempt to knock off the outer layer of smooth brown scale did more to take more if it away than to remove scale and show it. 

The more I use the heavier anvil, though, the more I like it with 4-lb hammer work. It's like having a bigger ford truck vs. a compact 90s toyota pickup. The toyota pickup might last three times as long, but sometimes the load won't fit in it. 

At my level, i can't complain and in the past have fallen into thinking once I know something "higher end" and more expensive is available, I allow my mind to convince me that I need to eventually move to it, which then becomes quickly. changing to "if it's not good enough, I'll replace it when I wear it out or break it" really cuts down on follow-up purchases. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Mod34
Inappropriate language

[Buster Bolster]

ever so slightly over 80% for JHM, 90% for the smaller anvil. 

[Buster Bolster]

Lost one of the ball bearings by the way. I set out to come here and put some accurate info out there for the competitor since I really couldn't find any. Final word on it - it marks a little easier on the surface than my possibly soderfors anvil, or whatever it is, it's a good vintage anvil. But, working hot metal, the marks that I have on the surface of the JHM after several hours of very heavy hammering to draw out high carbon bar are the kind of thing where maybe it will need to be resurfaced after a couple of thousand chisels, and probably if I have to do that, the slightly lower hardness will be a treat for that. Resurfacing a 60 hardness anvil of any size has to be a bear. 

80% rebound and maybe slightly less than that if the drop is higher is still fine. 

And at least at this point, the anvil will show up at a decent truck freight rate, the shape is nice for me (big horn, big flat working surface - farriers shape but maybe big enough that operations more typical on a 125 pound farrier's anvil might be awkward). the heft is nice for my purposes and if I ever run across a dandy 300 pound vintage anvil for a song, then it'd be a more interesting comparison. 

I may be back in the future at some point, not sure.