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Hardie Hole size


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Pouring an anvil soon as I found an old pattern in my foundry. Weight will be between 85 and 100 lbs and will be poured out of H13 tool steel. Should the hardie hole on an anvil that size be 3/4 or 1 inch? Should the hole have a taper or a straight square through the part. I need to build a corebox this week and would appreciate any opinions. 

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28 minutes ago, foundryguy said:

Should the hole have a taper or a straight square through the part.

Straight. If anything, a slight flare (making it a bit wider at the bottom than at the top) to help prevent jamming.

2 minutes ago, Dave51B said:

 My 100 lb. A&H has a 7/8" straight through hardie hole...           Dave

As does my 148 lb. Mousehole.

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Lets just say I have taught a class or two, Even if you have the anvils and the hardy tooling colour coded students don't seem to be able to retain the idea that a tool may not fit every anvil's hardy hole. (exp: A loose 1" stem gets pounded into a 7/8 hardy hole...)

(and if you look at one of my hardies you will see where I took it and forged the end of the shank down to provide a protruding end to be tapped out of a tight hardy hole without upsetting it into a monolithic solid)

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An out of square hardy hole isn't much of a problem, I have yet to meet a blacksmith that was really plumb and square.

Were I casting an anvil I'd go with 1" almost every bottom tool I've found has a 7/8" or 1" shank on it. The 7/8" shank tools work just dandy in a 1" hole. The other way? not so. :(

Frosty The Lucky.

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My vote is for straight 1" as well.  Healthy majority (and I've seen a lot) of antique hardy tools I've seen have been 1".  My first anvil was a 125# Peter Wright with a factory 1 1/4" hh.  No problem, the horn was more beat than the hole.  

If casting out of h-13 you could probably have a 2" hh in a 75 pound anvil and if everything else was done correctly have no problems.  

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