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Anvil id


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From a website called iforgeiron: Wilkinson Anvil's are of British manufacture. From "Anvils in America" Richard Postman notes that there were up to four (4) different Wilkinson companies/shops in the Dudley/Birmingham area making anvils. And at least two of these companies were exporting to the U.S.

Probably Joshua Wilkinson

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2 minutes ago, Lou L said:

Thomas, I can't help but think you know this from anecdotal AND personal experience.  My question is this:  Why did you desire to have a purple anvil?

Ya know... I was thinking the same thing, would be kinda neat to see!

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Actually it was from an experiment decades ago on early medieval pattern welding.  "The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England" H.R.Ellis Davidson listed a series of possible ways to develop the patterns in a pattern welded blade and besides selective rusting in salt water they mentioned tannic acid from peat bogs. Not having a peat bog handy, I remembered a chemistry experiment where we boiled a pound of tea for an hour and then extracted the caffeine and went an purchased the lowest quality black tea I could find. Boiled it up and left a pattern welded leaf shaped spear head soaking in it overnight.  In the morning I removed in and it was covered with black fuzz. "Well that was a dud" I thought walking to the sink but when I washed it the fuzz slipped off leaving the pattern visible in various shades of blue/purple/black. I later ran across a cite on experiments in using tannic acid as a rust preventer in one of the old ASM manuals IIRC.

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