Hello all. Posting this for a friend of mine. We're wondering if some of the experts here could help us out with any information on this bridge anvil? All we know so far is that it was manufactured either by or for the Oregon Iron Works Co. We'd especially like to know what all that extra metal on the base is about. Our guess is that it slid onto some sort of mount maybe.

It's a great piece and we are looking forward to more info. Thanks!

 

 

 

not an anvil I believe  it's a mooring cleat.

All I can tell you is that it's cast. It's hard to tell how heavy it is from the pics, but most bridge anvils are quite large. That extra stuff at the bottom of the base is interesting. Looks like a rare find.

lol you could be right! Thanks Thomas! Hope I don't get in trouble for posting that...

26 minutes ago, C-1ToolSteel said:

All I can tell you is that it's cast. It's hard to tell how heavy it is from the pics, but most bridge anvils are quite large. That extra stuff at the bottom of the base is interesting. Looks like a rare find.

We aren't sure about the weight. Don't have big enough scales to weigh it. We're guessing 4 to 5 hundred. It takes more than a couple of guys to pick it up for sure.

 

the extra stuff is to make it bind well when cast into a concrete pier

Now I have a mooring cleat that I found at the local scrapyard probably a good days drive from anywhere that float a boat big enough to use it...  I got it for doing sheet metal work for reproduction armour.

Don't listen to me. Thomas Powers is always right. I didn't even know what a mooring cleat was. I guess it really wouldn't make since to have two hardy holes.

my bridge anvil has 2 hardy holes; however I believe those are probably for large long rods to go down into the pier as well---are they round?

And I'm NOT always right; but I am always opinionated.  However I try not to post on subjects I have little to no background in so it ups my reputation---much like the younger Dr Strange. 

18 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

my bridge anvil has 2 hardy holes; however I believe those are probably for large long rods to go down into the pier as well---are they round?

And I'm NOT always right; but I am always opinionated.  However I try not to post on subjects I have little to no background in so it ups my reputation---much like the younger Dr Strange. 

I'm having a hard time finding any large mooring cleats with horns this short. I'm certainly not saying your wrong but judging from pictures I have been googling it sure looks like a bridge anvil. What you said about the base being cast into cement definitely makes sense though. I believe the holes are square but we'll have to clean the dirt out of em to be sure. My friend says he'll be cleaning it up real soon...

That is a mooring Bollard. A cleat is smaller and has horns and goes on the boat. That bollard is concreted to the pier or bolted to it if it is a wooden pier. They make bollards of all shapes with and without horns, square cylindrical, that is definitely a bollard. It may actually double up as an anvil of sort, but they are cast and usually not the best sort.

looks like the corners are to sharp to tie a rope to

Mm ... you have a point there ... and the edges at the top are chipped. Mm ... the holes at the top should be the giveaway, if they are round for bolting or square for a tool.

It could be a bollard but not a mooring one, a bollard to stop vehicles from driving into a pedestrian area ... (?)

Looks like a variation of the bridge anvils I've seen, though I've never seen one with a base so large.  

Could it be a mooring cleat or some type of bollard to block traffic?  Well, it could have been pressed into that service, but I have a hard time believing it was designed for such a thing.  The edges are too square to be roped to; they'd abrade the rope far too quickly and companies certainly would have kept that in mind when designing the thing.

All the bollards I've seen are usually far taller so they're more visible from the cab of a vehicle.  While that would certainly stop a vehicle from passing, it's a pretty expensive way to go about it when you could just backfill a large pipe with some cement.
 

The bottom looks like those pieces were added on later to form t-grooves.  Why?  I have no idea.   If the "legs" on the bottom were simply to give it bite when sunk into a cement pad.... well why?  And why don't they go all the way across?  Those are some pretty thick pieces and the t-groove design wouldn't be necessary when you consider the overall weight of the thing.  Seems mighty complex a build for something that you'd be hard pressed to move even if it was sitting on top of the cement.  Would the t-grooves make enough of a difference to warrant being added to the mold forms?

 

It is NOT a mooring cleat, or a safety Bollard.  That is definitely a Bridge anvil.  The slots on the bottom are similar to one that got posted here several years ago.  It looks like they could slide onto  up side down railroad track or heavy I beams to raise it up or make it easier to be moved with a forklift.

7 hours ago, Marc1 said:

That is a mooring Bollard. A cleat is smaller and has horns and goes on the boat. That bollard is concreted to the pier or bolted to it if it is a wooden pier. They make bollards of all shapes with and without horns, square cylindrical, that is definitely a bollard. It may actually double up as an anvil of sort, but they are cast and usually not the best sort.

from my research i would tend to agree.

Since its election day, my vote is for bridge anvil. I did an image search for mooring bollard and bridge anvil. Mooring bollard came up with nothing that looked like this, but there were many that came up under bridge anvil that looked just like it. But what do I know? Before this site I had never heard of either.

 

EDIT: No matter what it is I'm sure it hot metal can be pounded on it.

As fun as this guessing is has anyone contacted the Oregon Iron Works and asked them what they made it for?

http://www.oregoniron.com/contact-us/

A rebound test should clear things up.

So do we know now what that thing is?

I just emailed the company. Waiting for an answer. They wouldn't let me send a pic, so it was kinda awkward.

On 11/13/2016 at 5:51 PM, C-1ToolSteel said:

I just emailed the company. Waiting for an answer. They wouldn't let me send a pic, so it was kinda awkward.

Send them a real snail mail letter with a picture in it. Only problem is they might want it back and now they'll have your address!

Holes are definitely square

 

Holes are square when you use a carriage bolt also.  Well in part of the hole anyway.  Could be either and you could use it for either.  Have fun with it!!

That post with the video of the gigantic anvil collection from the other day showed several bridge anvils that looked almost identical to this one--I think I even saw the same bottom "keys" on one but the shot of those was quite short.  IIRC it was toward the end of the vid showing the last aisle of treasures.

So...either this one is truly a bridge anvil or the collector shown there was also fooled.  My vote is for the former.

All sorts of things I can speculate on about that beast but I'll just go along with Josh and say bridge anvil.

Frosty The Lucky.

Since the company is still in existence; I am holding off speculation until they have weighed in.  I know that corporations can loose their history; especially after multiple times being sold; but I still hope....(I once was trying to find the correct length, or pull, of a whamo powermaster *pistol* crossbow and finally called the home office which denied having ever made such a thing----while I was holding it in my hands with their trademarks on it.  When I told them this they then said that they had been sold 3 times since those days and no "tribal knowledge" of their odder products existed.  I finally found someone online who had one with the original string so I could make one.)