Hasco Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 There is a peter wright 138lb anvil available online. It is close enough to me that I would be able to pick it up and not have to pay for shipping. This would be my first real anvil. To me it looks good in the photos. I am just not sure if I should be concerned that it has had some kind of work done to the top and horn or if that would be a good thing. Any advice would be great. Thanks so much for looking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccustomknives Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Looks to me like it's had some resurfacing. I'd be concerned about it. Take a ball bearing to test it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hasco Posted June 11, 2016 Author Share Posted June 11, 2016 Thank you jmccustomknives! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rmartin2 Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 I saw a Hay Budden at a flea market today with over half the face that appeared to be re-surfaced. I had my handy dandy ball bearing with me and tried it out. The area that was re-surfaced had a really dull thud and maybe 50% rebound. The area not messed with had a lot of rebound and plenty of ring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Ling Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 The fact that the side of the anvil is all pitted, but the face isn't much, can tell you that it has been ground down past the pits, which could be past the high carbon face, or be very little left. It cant hurt to drive to it and do the ball bearing test, but I can almost guarantee you that it has been ground, and the edges possibly welded back-they look almost to crisp. Littleblacksmith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hasco Posted June 12, 2016 Author Share Posted June 12, 2016 Thanks so much for all the advice. I had a feeling the fact that the the top looked so good might not be a positive thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 Yup. Peter Wright anvil tops are too hard and prone to breaking Forget about that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the iron dwarf Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 its not thast PW top are too hard, the problem is that is not the original top, it is an anvil that has most likely been ruined by someone trying to improve it, I have a couple of PWs and they are fine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b4utoo Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 Its way over priced too.. I seen that listing too. Check out craigslist in your area....I'm sure you can deal on one of those... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 On 6/12/2016 at 10:16 AM, the iron dwarf said: its not thast PW top are too hard, the problem is that is not the original top, it is an anvil that has most likely been ruined by someone trying to improve it, I have a couple of PWs and they are fine Hmm. I wonder what happened to the original top? Huh. So your two anvils prove that all PWs are fine. The hundreds of broken PW top plates I have seem must have been imaginary. Thanks for setting me straight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 Broken top plates are often in the earlier anvils where the top plate was a series of pieces forge welded on sequentially allowing for an increased possibility of a bad weld issue. As a plus it will sometimes be only 1 plate that fails leaving the rest still nicely attached. It's NOT a function of them being too hard. Like many anvil repairs the chance that someone "fixing" it actually mucks it up worse is high. I believe this is what TID was referring too was it not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the iron dwarf Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 Any WI anvil with a top plate can get problems, a hard plate on a soft body and a couple of hundred years of use can cause that, I have an austrian anvil that would be quite at home on TP's wall of shame with most of the top plate missing and an ugly repair to a big break in the middle, I have an eveson, a wooldridge, and 2 KL's and there is nothing bad about a PW so arftist, you would only want an anvil that is either solid 01 toolsteel all the way through or as soft as mild steel all the way through. there is a reason for the top plate as many on here would know the main shop anvil is in fact just a couple of blocks of mild with a horn and pritchel as we get newbies in all the time to have a go, there are few who I would let use my good anvils Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidSig Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 I saw this listing and wrote a note to the seller. The round Hardy hole is an obvious concern. He said it was square down the hole. Probably a new welded top plate. Stay away from this anvil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 19 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: Broken top plates are often in the earlier anvils where the top plate was a series of pieces forge welded on sequentially allowing for an increased possibility of a bad weld issue. As a plus it will sometimes be only 1 plate that fails leaving the rest still nicely attached. It's NOT a function of them being too hard. Like many anvil repairs the chance that someone "fixing" it actually mucks it up worse is high. I believe this is what TID was referring too was it not? So hardness and brittleness are unrelated? Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 But the damage was not due to brittleness it was do to a bad weld. And a bad forge weld is not related to the hardness or brittleness of the material just like it's not related to the color of the hair of the forge welder! If you want to learn about the relation of hardness and brittleness I noticed that the Lincoln Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding had a fairly good discussion of it in layman's terms; at least it seemed a be a good match with my MatSci class at Cornell. The discussion was just after the section in the beginning of the book discussing the history of welding---Breakfast reading for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said: But the damage was not due to brittleness it was do to a bad weld. And a bad forge weld is not related to the hardness or brittleness of the material just like it's not related to the color of the hair of the forge welder! If you want to learn about the relation of hardness and brittleness I noticed that the Lincoln Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding had a fairly good discussion of it in layman's terms; at least it seemed a be a good match with my MatSci class at Cornell. The discussion was just after the section in the beginning of the book discussing the history of welding---Breakfast reading for me. I was being sacastic. Hardness has everything to do with edge chips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 14, 2016 Share Posted June 14, 2016 Hardness, alloy, manufacturing methodology, abuse, all affect edge chipping; but I'd rather have an anvil with chipped edges than one repaired by someone who doesn't know how to do it properly---and so if confronted with unknown repairs I tend to not pay top dollar even if the anvil is "pretty". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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