Curious question about anvil construction...

[WNC Goater]

I recently acquired a cast steel Columbian, 103# it has great rebound.  The guy I bought it from says there is no top plate as it is all cast steel. However, apparently people "back then" expected a top plate so Columbia cast it with a faux top plate. 

My question is, why didn't more manufacturers adopt all cast steel anvils? Seems it eliminates the problems of top plate welding, delaminations, unrepairable damage, swage, etc.  Was the process more difficult, required expensive molds, never widely accepted?  

[ThomasPowers]

Early days: Even as late as the American Civil War high carbon steel could cost 6 times what wrought iron did.

Middling days: casting tends to leave large grain that is generally dealt with by heavy forging. You can get around this using alloying elements to help refine the grain but that is more expensive.

Nowadays: most good anvils are cast using modern Metallurgy

Also do not discount *tradition* or "We've always done it this way!"  Handling molten steel, (and making it), takes a whole nother skill set so switchovers by manufacturers would be quite costly as they would have to retool and retrain the entire factory.

[WNC Goater]

"We've always done it this way".  Boy how many companies and organizations have died because of those words.  

What you say makes sense though.  I suspect the cast steel "technology", if you will, came along at the tail end of the golden age of blacksmithing and anvil manufacturing. I believe Columbia started in 1901 and only made anvils in any numbers until about 1925 (available info can be a bit conflicting)  Anyway,  true and traditional blacksmithing as a trade was probably dying out.

I DO believe they actually heat treated the face though how they did that to the face alone on a one-piece casting I do not know.

[ThomasPowers]

Pretty easily: there are two main methods: heat the face to critical leaving the rest of the body lagging in temp and quench the entire anvil.  Or Heat the entire anvil to critical and quench only the face---harder to control. 

[Thief_Of_Navarre]

6 hours ago, WNC Goater said:

"We've always done it this way".  Boy how many companies and organizations have died because of those words.  

Forget Maggie thatcher! This was the singular reason for the death of the Sheffield steel industry; An inability to move with the times. My parents moved out of Sheffield at just the right time I think (early 60's). My dad still ended up working in the industry but for a crane manufacturer in Germany where they were actually thinking forward and investing in new process.

[ThomasPowers]

Well also compare this with the percentage of new tech start ups that fail---there is a fine line between too late and too early. Look at how Andrew Carnegie finessed the introduction of the Bessemer/Kelly process in steel making to become one of the wealthiest men in the world.  He was not the first, he's quoted as saying that "Pioneers don't generally make money". He waited till the process was mature enough to work reliably and then rode the heck out of it, streamlining and speeding things up.

[Thief_Of_Navarre]

Of course, you're right. It's all knowing when to jump on the wagon and how far to ride it! 

I have steel on CI, cast steel and steel on WI and of all of them I prefer the cast steel anvils. I haven't tried a fancy new ductile iron anvil but I've heard good things. 

[WNC Goater]

A quote I once heard at a business conference:

"Do the same things you've always done, in the same manner in which you've always done them and the world will change around you and leave you behind."

Adapt or die.

4 hours ago, Thief_Of_Navarre said:

 

I have steel on CI, cast steel and steel on WI and of all of them I prefer the cast steel anvils. I haven't tried a fancy new ductile iron anvil but I've heard good things. 

I don't have a lot of experience with various anvils to REALLY make any comparison of significance. I do have a smaller Fisher but that isn't a fair comparison.  What I DO know is the hammer will literally JUMP off the face of the cast steel Columbian, so FWIW.   It had a "defect"  however. On the base was a "hump" from casting. Like it had cooled and the steel set up just as the last glob of steel poured into the mold.  It caused the anvil to rock.  I was going to set it in sand anyway so I wasn't that concerned and bought it anyway. And apparently while it was in good condition overall,  it had obviously been well used in this condition and had apparently been mounted in such a way that this hump didn't interfere.  I ended up grinding that little hump off so it will sit flat, just to satisfy myself.  Still I set it in shallow sand base when I use it.