Das I didn't take it that way and I know your right.  Thanks

I'm just not understanding the need to fix every imperfection with an anvil.  Not every chip and ding needs to be filled and perfected for the anvil to produce beautiful work IMHO.  I would hate to use an anvil with sharp edges personally.  What I did was find a nice square 40 lb piece of steel and mounted on a post.  It's perfectly machined flat and has sharp corners.  I can use this for flattening primarily but also for a sharp edge.  My anvil has a little bit of sway in it, but it doesn't really impact my work until I want to flatten or perfectly straighten something, then I just go to the steel block for that.

I have to wonder if all the welding fetishes are just a pride thing like "Hey look at my nice perfect anvil"?  or "I need a perfect anvil before I start learning to forge."  The way I think about it is that my Trenton was made in the late 1800's and probably 3-4 smiths before me used this thing.  Except for the very first guy who bought it new, the other 3 or so just forged on it ignoring the chips and dings of the previous smiths knowing no real abuse happened, only honest work.  That says to me that they didn't really pay much attention to these blemishes and that it was expected from a tool that was used to put food on the table.  So.......I just became the next caretaker using this anvil so if it was good enough for them it's good enough for me.  I just cleaned her up and started forging on it.

MC Hammer, I see that all the time on the Anvils FB page. Everyone wants it to look new, even when it is not that bad. Some get calmed down after it is explained to them, but others insist that a few hours with a MIG and a flap wheel are absolutely necessary............... It is their anvil, and they can do what they want with it.  

I can get over the people modifying (even cluelessly) an anvil they intend to keep and use. 

It's the resellers that get them polished up, welded square and badly ground flat, to charge extra for something that's now drastically devalued. They drive me crazy! (okay, so it's a short drive...)

Exo - I too am ok with people modifying their own anvils to suit their work, but I wonder how many new to the hobby are out there taking their fine anvil and having it machined, welded up etc. because they think it will perform better?  I'm thankful for the voices here that post constantly to just leave the anvil as it is when you are new and work hot metal on it before thinking about "fixing" anything.  It saved me from "fixing" mine when I got it as a newbie.

I saw one guy who does something to the anvils he sells that takes every bit of patina off them to the point where they look spray painted silver.  I know none of this affects how the anvil performs, but it really makes the anvil look bad.  Like a checkered suit, it works just fine but man does it look odd. 

 

OLD insane asylums invariably had blacksmith shops, because "rehabilitation" for folks with mental problems usually included farm work..

I seem to recall something about old hospitals too.. For prostheses and such. 

 

I've actually met and talked with a smith that did prosthesis and splint work in WW2 in a Hospital in Columbus OH.   I'm glad I got a chance as he was selling off his home shop after a terminal diagnosis.   He was one of a group of smiths and assistants working there and told me that as the only married  man he was brought in when a special splint needed to be forged for a WAC (?) who had broken her hip. (He also told me he never even got to see her as she was behind a curtain and the Drs would make the measurements he asked for and call them out through the curtain---but he had never told the rest of the smiths that at the time!

I later tracked down a maintenance guy that worked at that same hospital and he told me that there was at least 1 anvil still in a sub basement.  Unfortunately I moved 1500 miles away before I got any closer to that one...

Must be the plastic surgery mind set. People don’t get that “imperfections” are often as not a beauty on to themselves. Heck blonds dye their hair wile everyone else bleaches theirs

Funny I have no urge to try to look younger; I fought tooth and nail to get this old and am *proud* to show it! 

I earned every one of my grey hairs and proud of them.

Me, I seem to be giving them away lately...

There's been and influx of "old anvils" for sale on different Finnish buy/sell websites... I don't follow the brain-cooker so dunno if Forged in Flatus has started airing over here, too.

Would you buy this beautiful piece of craftsmanship for 60€?