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I Forge Iron

A collection of improvised anvils


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That is my understanding, yes #1 is a broken train couple. 

#2 is plate

#3 is large shafting

#4 I think it is a hammer from a rock crusher from a gravel quarry 

#5 6" block, a hardy bick and a plate (chiseling?)

#6 an un mounted drop on a choke cherry stump.

#7 large granit cobble

#8 I have a suspicion it's from another rock crusher

#9 I suspect this is a large axle hub, but not 100% as to the block at the bottom 

#10 the lowly rail anvil properly orintated.

#11 another large drop

# 12 another properly oriented (for heavy forging) rail anvil with the web ground as a fuller

#13 and lastly a track hoe mounted hydronic breaker bit. Some in the archives is a descusion by another member who mounted one and has been using it as an anvil. 

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Number four is a breaker bit off a large backhoe.  The last pic is the hammer that pushes the breaker.  Both the hammer and the breaker bit make great "anvils". Number four has 80% rebound.  When prices come down on German and London pattern "real" anvils I'll get serious about getting one until then it works just fine for most everything I do.  Thanks Charles

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  Here is the sledgehammer head standing upright in a stump. I can't take a credit for this idea. Yes, it came from IFI, made this last year for my 5 year old, I use it more than he does. 

   In the quest for better tools. I randomly will buy an anvil, after a test drive, comes the hard part. Finding a good home for the anvil, that will go away. The tools I have I use, would love to have a stack of anvils. Budget and space, say no. For every one I sell, I get a handful of the, just starting looking for a deal on a London pattern." I need to have one before I can start". Every one gets the same answer, its not the tools that make the craftsman, its the craftsman that makes the tools. Then describe the sledgehammer head anvil. 

sledge hammer anvil.jpg

 

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We have so many new smiths coming here with the common misconception that an anvil is a magical tool that looks like the acme product that fell on Wiley e coyote, we needed to show them what a real anvil looks like. 

Would any one have pictures of ancient anvils? I don't want to make problems for Glenn and co for mining the internet and causing copyright waves.

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Reading the Sept/Oct 2017 issue of Archeology  I had to wince as I read "Lost Kingdom of the Britons"  where the author stated: "The fort's blacksmith had an anvil" I've mailed the editor asking why they didn't mention "The fort's cook had a way of heating food", "The fort's weavers had looms" or "The fort's spinners had spindles".

Also they mentioned that a delicate iron pin was "pounded into shape rather than cast".  Hammered would be better than "pounded" and casting of iron in the West dates nearly half a millennium later... 

For medieval anvils "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" has several examples shown as well as the 

Hylestad Stave Church carvings:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/door3932.jpg

door3932.jpg

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/door3934.jpg

door3934.jpg

Roman:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9e/b3/81/9eb3817abaaaeb2bea4014935995e818.jpg

9eb3817abaaaeb2bea4014935995e818.jpg

Viking:

https://www.iforgeiron.com/uploads/monthly_2017_08/IMG_2551.jpg.e5ac230c5eeeeb00fe235b9d0cfc2f52.jpg

IMG_2551.jpg

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Stopped at my grandfather's old metalworking shop and took some pics of this/these frankensteined beauties..

IMG_6901.thumb.JPG.561d828d065e46e2a6b8027636452e45.JPG

That plate on the right is enormous. This old man has one of just about everything... except his 25# trip hammer he sold about 3 minths before I decided to take up the craft... shucks. 

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