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Can an Anvil lose temper from forging


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Hey guys im not sure if this is a stupid question, I feel kind of dumb asking it. Can an anvil lose temper from the heat of the steel your forging? I was forging some 1 1/2" round yesterday and when I pulled my piece away to reheat I noticed some bluish colour where I had removed it from. Thanks

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Sadly, yes it can.

If it gets hot enough, the anvil can become softer.

Sometimes temper colors occur, even though it hasn't reached this temperature. I don't know exactly why this happens.

If you want to know if your anvil is too hot, put some water on the face, not much at all.
If it boils, it's quite hot. Perhaps you want to ease off, or make less contact with the anvil - this is more efficient, to not have the anvil rob heat.
If it just steams a bit and doesn't boil, you're in the safe zone.

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It's not likely but it's possible. I don't know of anyone having it happen. There's nothing wrong with it getting too warm to touch, I believe old school says if your anvil isn't hot enough to cook lunch on you're not working hard enough.

I don't know why it'd turn blue working something that small, 1 1/2" rd. isn't a lot of contact area and the anvil has a lot of mass behind the face to carry heat away. If you're concerned drop a piece of white paper on it, it'll start to toast LIGHTLY around 300f, turn golden brown around 350f. If it turns black it's pushing 450f time to cool it down.

White paper and wooden match sticks are handy gauges for preheat temps. Aluminum's annealing temp is right about where a wooden match stick starts to char a bit. You can use a charcoal mark too, when it disappears you're there.

Okay, sidetracking again, where were we?.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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Proper technique is to not leave a piece in contact with an anvil for long periods of time; but 400 to 450 deg F was the preheat suggested by Robb Gunter for anvil repair and one smith that used to be around mentions boiling the tea kettle on their anvil at lunch time when they were doing heavy work.  If you are doing heavy work and having trouble with the anvil getting too hot you need to either cool the anvil off or get a bigger anvil!

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Alright. To be honest I don't think it got nearly as hot as you guys are describing. It was barely even warm to the touch where the colors occured. It was just the first time i'd seen that so it got me thinking. Regardless ill try not to keep my steel in the same spot for extended periods of time. Cheers

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