Within the coming year my wife and I will be moving to the ranch where I work and where my current smithy is, we currently live in town. When we get out there I would like to move one of my forges over to our house so I can work on smaller stuff there and leave the big forge in the ranch shop.

I've been trying to find a new anvil but most of what I have seen on local classifieds are priced way to high for what they are so I got to thinking about building an ASO and I have a couple questions. 

1. Is there any reason I couldnt/shouldn't use stacked 1" mild steel plates as the main body of it? The local scrap yard gets large drops from time to time and puts them in their $0.37 pile.

2. Should I hard surface the top of it or just get some harder steel to face it with?

The picture is just a quick mock up of what I'm thinking, needs more thought put into it I'm sure.

Any advice or redesign ideas would be appreciated. 

I am considering the same plan. 

Anxiously awaiting responses 

The stacked slabs make a poor anvil.

Think of the Nimitz-class air craft carrier with an overall length of 1,092 ft (333 m) and a full-load displacement of over 100,000 long tons. If you parked it in your back yard and used the deck as an anvil, you would only be able to move hot metal under the area of your hammer face. The rest of the 100,000 long tons of weight would not matter. 

If you take a piece of rail road track and stand it on end, you have the mass under the hammer face. The london pattern anvil has the waist and most of the mass at the sweet spot and under the hammer face.

Look for a solid piece of metal and stand it on end. Think large hydraulic cylinder, etc.

Every unfused joint absorbs energy. This arrangement is very similar to earthquake resistant foundations. Find an old truck axle or better yet a rail car axle or any piece of shaft stock larger than the face of your hammer and mount it on end.

Frosty The Lucky.

I was afraid that may be the case. I'm not ruling out larger stock but would stacking vertically have the same absorption rate? Local scrap yard usually doesn't isolate the larger pieces like that for resale, usually gets loaded onto the train and sent on.

Once again that is the plan I started to develope. Standing vertical with a another peice laying on top 

Look at the vertical "anvil" Brian Bazel (hopefully spelled right) uses, I have pictures but as usual can't find it when wanted.  This will demo the vertical approach which is hard to understand when we have always seen blacksmiths shown with traditional style anvils through out history. I was intrigued when I first saw him using it.   

 

I found it, I think this great and Brian sure makes it hum!

I built a "Brazeal type" anvil like the one in the picture they work very well with little to invest. Use a cutting torch to rough in the shape and then grind smooth

I want to build one, but more of the type Alec Steele uses. I don't see what that angles dye would be used for. What Steele are these made of? Mild?

yes they are made from mild steel. I have seen pictures of brian making 3D horse heads, using the angle, and also to set shoulders down.  

The angle is used for forging it is the bottom die, your hammer is the top die. And yes mild steel works just fine, red hot metal is much softer and will move when forging.

If you are refering to the striking anvil that Alec uses it has a much different use.

Imagine what you could cut into the other 3 faces....

2 minutes ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

Imagine what you could cut into the other 3 faces....

Exactly, so long as you leave enough it sits securely on the stand, rocking under the hammer is a bad thing.

When you go to the scrap yard, visit in the morning and take a box of doughnuts and make something nice for the secretary/receptionist. It won't be long and they'll have a pile of likely stuff set aside for you. Good PR is never a bad thing. If people like you they'll do things for you.

Frosty The Lucky.

Slot the stump...

 

You know what, I really need an anvil with better edges. Right now I can't afford a nice anvil in good shape, so I am going to try and go to the scrap yard and get a big chunk of steel. Of course the things I want to forge need decent edges: horse heads, cranes, and tools. Yeah I could make a hardy tool, but my hardy is messed up too. If I do wind up making it after I am done with my current project, I will make a thread for you guys.

no, I was refuring to his Die anvils, not the striking anvil.(wich is also mild steel)

On ‎2‎/‎28‎/‎2016 at 11:21 AM, Ethan the blacksmith said:

I have seen pictures of brian making 3D horse heads

Is this the 3d horse head you  meant?  If so it now sets on in my bookshelf, He put in the auction at the meet I saw him at

also picture of the striking plate he used x the amount of chain on it!

Wow, that's a nice piece to have! How much did you get it for?

I think I got it for $85 in the auction, I was in the mood to buy it and did.  Nice keep sake from the weekend he was in New England, nice guy.  He worked from Fri noon till Sun noon, him and Lyle. 

Think I may have found my anvil. This is not my picture but we have the same machine and have one of the bars that holds the blades laying in the dirt in our junk pile. I think it's about 2" thick, any reason it wouldn't work?

 

yes that is what I was talking about. when I when to England, I asked alec steele if we could make a big horse head. I will get a pic of it.

On March 1, 2016 at 8:35 PM, notownkid said:

I think I got it for $85 in the auction, I was in the mood to buy it and did.  Nice keep sake from the weekend he was in New England, nice guy.  He worked from Fri noon till Sun noon, him and Lyle. 

Man that's is worth every penny!

1 hour ago, Ethan the blacksmith said:

yes that is what I was talking about. when I when to England, I asked alec steele if we could make a big horse head. I will get a pic of it.

I saw that horse had in your YouTube video. Is it much different from the flat horses?

1 hour ago, Pancho07 said:

Think I may have found my anvil. This is not my picture but we have the same machine and have one of the bars that holds the blades laying in the dirt in our junk pile. I think it's about 2" thick, any reason it wouldn't work?

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but as long as it is it is a decent amount of thickness, you should be ok. Whether that is an anvil, piece of steel, or even a hard rock.

Does anyone know how wide brazaels is? I think that's the way I'm going to go, whether this works or not.

I'd guess at Brian's anvil size but it'd just be an educated guess. What I'll do instead is tell you how I estimate such things. I look around the pic for something I know the size of close by at a good enough angle to gauge from. In this case Brian's hammers are all home made so those aren't a reliable gauge and the 2" angle and sq pipe in the pic are far enough behind to again be unreliable gauges. However the handles on Brian's hammers are close enough to 1" thick to be good gauges.

I'd eyeball estimate that anvil judging by the hammer handle thickness at being minimum 3" thick and max 4" thick. With the caveat I might, MIGHT mind you, be holding my tongue on the wrong side and be off by an inch on the max side.

If I needed to be more precise I'd use a pair of dividers from my little drawing kit, set them to the handle thickness and walk them off on the anvil's ends. Being aware that the pic is at an angle so it's doing to read narrower than it'd measure straight on.

This is why I wish everybody would put a scale in pics of their work, tools like this especially. If Brian had laid a ruler of tape measure parallel with the end you could simple set the dividers to the anvil's width and read the width on the ruler. Too easy but if wishes were fishes we'd be having to come up with some other example of tall tale than "fish story." <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Frosty