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If it's an excellent anvil that isn't a Mousehole, it's a Soderfors.

Where does that come from?  totally different in almost every respect.  

MH was forged with steel plate, Soderfors was all cast steel.  Their profile shapes were not nearly the same look either.

As far as identifying a Soderfors, many times you'll see the parting cast line running up the base under the heel/horn.  Some (not all) Soderfors have flats on the feet similar to Peter Wright.  Once you're familiar with the "look" of Swedish anvils, it is easier to notice how the lines of feet flow upward into the waist area.  Generally those lines go up higher than most other anvils.

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Oooooh, PRETTY! Look at how nice the edges are, hardly a chip! You might want to radius them, chipped edges is one of the defining things about Soderfors anvils. They're really hard steel so a missed blow in just the wrong spot and you can find yourself picking steel chips out of your leg. 

If you've never worked on a Soderfors be prepared for a real treat. That beautiful lady could be mine's big sister. 

Going to clean her up? A little wire brushing and a coat of good carnuba paste wax and  the wife will want it in the living room to show off to visitors. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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After a student broke the horn off the Fine Arts Metals Vulcan anvil, (ridge backed and worn out), I found a swedish cast steel anvil that was donated for use by the class.  It's a small one, 66 lbs,  and in mint condition---so much so I told the instructor that they should polish it and only use it for silversmithing.   Well they used it for hammering steel anyway and so I sourced an old bridge anvil, beat up but much more suitable for tool abusing students, again free.

Anyway with FinF showing a "knifemaking club" has formed at the University and got permission to use the Fine Arts Metals facilities with supervision by the club supporter.  I stopped by to visit on Sunday after they had used it on Saturday. In one club session they had chipped both sides of the anvil from front to back and damaged every pair of tongs with hammer impacts. It didn't help that they were unwilling to move the heavy anvil stand (30 gal drum full of concrete) and so had moved an anvil to a low stump making it over a foot too low for effective use by people as tall as they were. They broke a weld on the treadlehammer too. (Fine Arts Metals has had a nice setup: gas forge, anvil, treadlehammer, 5" postvise, commercial hammers and tongs...). Needless to say they club is no longer allowed to use the facility and their "supporter" is under ban as well.

Luckily I bring my own anvils AND do not let students in MY class abuse them!

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I have a total of 4 anvils, sadly, all sit idle now in my shop.  Soon to change as I am laying the foundation now for a forge shed behind the shop.

I will radius the edges on all of them when they are properly mounted out in the  forge shed.

And all will be cleaned up.  

 

Can't wait!     Ordered knife steel yesterday and today. 

 

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PIcs of them shiny please. :)

I tend to hover when my Soderfors is set up at a meeting or students are in the shop. However most seem to be pretty darned careful so I still bring it. 

You k now what they say about college students don't you Thomas? Collective IQ is inversely proportional to numbers. Well, that's humans in general isn't it? I like nice small groups, I can wrangle up to 3.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Shooting themselves in the foot that way I find un-understandable. I've lent tools before to people I know were going to destroy them. And every time they came back with the brand new store boughten replacement parts; sometimes with duplicates for things like a punch and die for a whitney punch used to bunch a whole lot of holes in Titanium sheet...Of course I lend tools to people I trust to be that way.  (I have the nice skull stickers with "No Tools Loaned" to show the others...)

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