S.I.S.co 99lbs what now?

[NoName]

  Okay, it looked great but my lack of X-ray vision cost me. I was so pumped to get a Swedish anvil. It was a Craigslist find in Kansas, I had it shipped. When it landed on my front steps it had a dusting of snow on the top (Michigan) and it still looked great. The more I cleaned it up, the more my stomach turned. The face is pitted, the edges are chipped, nothing major.

  Help, should I have the face ground?  Rebound seems shady, dropping a ball bearing, some spots I swear (sorry to swear in my first post) it jumps 110% other spots its 50%. Rings like a firebell.

  Do I clean it up? Or bang on it?   

[ThomasPowers]

Ring shows no hidden cracks, face is well within tolerance for forging.  Bounce is good and the off areas are probably just issues with hitting a divot.

If you want to grind the face I suggest you grind off the same amount of your face *first*---just using it will smooth and polish out the face, why throw away uselife?  Unless you plan only to forge silver and gold on it and then I'd polish out the face beforehand.

May want to round the edges a bit  more.

[the iron dwarf]

take off 1/20" off the top and you could reduce the life of the anvil by 100  years, it looks like some idiot has already done enough damage to it

[Glenn]

Have you used the anvil yet?   What were you NOT able to do on the anvil?

What makes you think if you remove metal from the anvil face, it will improve the anvil?

Bed the anvil down in 3-4 inches of sand or loosely wrap some chain around the anvil waist to kill the ring.  Use the anvil for a year, not just every other weekend, but use it as much as possible. After a year come back and tell us what the anvil was NOT able to do. We can then make suggestions.

Enjoy your new anvil. Put it to work and do not look back.

[NoName]

 Thanks, I have heard of, Sawmakers, Plowmakers, but never a Raspmakers. I only "make noise, somke, and fire" DG; on weekends. I hope to retire to it full time in 60 years or so. Today my 401K is my returnable beer cans, in the corner of my shed.  

[mutant]

It looks great as is! I bet you could make anything you wanted to on that - within reason. 

[Frosty]

I don't see an indication of "Rasp makers" in the pics. The trade name would be "Eisenhowers" anvil. Please don't do any more damage to that anvil, Soderfors are about as good as it gets. Most of the visible damage is weather pitting and a couple arc gouges. Grinding it off is worse than using it as is.

If you actually NEED a smooth face make a bottom tool that fits the hardy hole. I recommend welding the shank to one side, this saves you the time and effort of scarfing  and cleaning the weld so the weld doesn't interfere with it laying flat on the anvil face, it also lets you position the plate more over the sweet spot.

The edges are about normal for a long used Soderfors anvil. Radiusing them for a couple few inches is a good thing it lets you set shoulders without forging cold shuts into the inside corner. I recommend about 3" max radiused about 1/16" on both sides fro the step back. Radiusing on the tail is a BAD idea, the anvil's not live enough out on the tail.

Radiusing the whole anvil is a waste of time and again more damage than goodness. If you need a crisp edge see the above bottom tool but weld the shank so the plate will lay with one edge an an edge of the anvil so you can access a full 90*.

Frosty The Lucky.