New anvil, What are your thoughts?

[ArcticSmith]

I'd like to start off with saying hello, this is my first post on this forum and i look forward to posting many more. I have taken an interest in blacksmithing recently (though i think the interest has been there sub-consciously since i made 5-6 knifes at a Viking Festival here in Norway when i was 12, some 10 years ago.) 

So i have just started collecting tools and machines which i will need, and i was lucky enough to find an old anvil that has been in my family for perhaps 120 years if not more. My mother told me my Great Grandfather had owned it.

Its rusty but nothing too bad, the rust is not coming off in flakes, brushing it and grinding it a little should make it brand new. And it has a hardie hole but i could not find of the tools you put inside it.

The Inscription that i have managed to read says "Jahn" and i think there is a "&" after Jahn. (since a picture says more than a thousand words, here take a picture  )

I'd say it weighs around 40kg (90lbs). Anyhow, i look forward to putting it to good use after sitting in our barn for 70 years. 

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Thanks.

-ArcticSmith

[tdaleh]

Take a wire brush to it and put it to work . Looks to be in good shape. 

[arftist]

It is beautifull. 

Use the wirebrush but not the grinder.

Grinding is really bad for anvils.

[ArcticSmith]

Okay i will do that. May i ask why its bad for anvils? Thanks

[Foundryman]

There's also what appears to be a diamond shape with letters issue stamped beside the 38.

The hardened steel face of an anvil is finite, in some cases they are very thin and without it's hardened face an anvil is nothing but a block of iron. By grinding away the face you reduce the life of the anvil and actually make it a worse tool.

[lloe01]

Sweet!

[ArcticSmith]

On 5/16/2016 at 9:41 PM, Foundryman said:

There's also what appears to be a diamond shape with letters issue stamped beside the 38.

The hardened steel face of an anvil is finite, in some cases they are very thin and without it's hardened face an anvil is nothing but a block of iron. By grinding away the face you reduce the life of the anvil and actually make it a worse tool.

huh, i didnt know that! thanks for the answer  

[ThomasPowers]

There were two main ways of making anvils: 1 has the anvil's face forge welded to a wrought iron or mild steel body (even as late as the American Civil War (1860's) high carbon steel cost up to 6 times the cost of plain wrought iron) The other used a high carbon steel upper body that was hardened only to a certain depth to help prevent it from being brittle (and to harden deep into such a large mass of HOT metal was a problem anyway---one reason that the really large anvils tend to be a bit softer than the "little" anvils---which worked out well as the real large anvils tended to see a LOT of "abuse" in industrial settings...)

The Fisher method is a 3rd but probably not found in Norway...