humphreymachine Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Bought this 1941 Fisher sawer's anvil today. No numerical weight mark like I am accustomed to but there are four vertical lines or '1's. Is it a 400 pounder? I would have guessed closer to 300 pounds but it can be tough to tell with these chunky non London pattern anvils. 13 inches high. 12.5 x 7 inch top face with canted corners. 16 3/4 x 12.5 inch foot print. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Cochran Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I’m going to guess it’s getting close to 400lbs. I’m also going to say I’m quite jealous of such a good looking anvil such as that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedefiddle Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Check it with a local commercial scale or highway truck scale. Put it in your vehicle, drive over the scale. Take it home and unload, drive back over scale. Computers don't seem to have a scale. Neil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 I am guessing/hoping/assuming that someone here will have the answer. I just unloaded it with gravity in my favor. It's not going back in my vehicle any time soon. It does not appear 100 pounds heavier than my 300 hundred pound London style Fisher and it does not appear to have as much mass as 2 200 pound anvils but it can be tough to tell. They are bottom heavy, chunky and hard to move without the natural hand holds on a traditional anvil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 @njanvilman will know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caotropheus Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Try to make a seesaw swing type scale, hang/attach in one edge your new anvil and on the other edge hang/pile weights you now...now you can estimate your new anvil's weight. Tell us the weight and show us pictures of scale you improvised... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 334 lb ... give or take Hint ... one cubic inch of steel weights 0.283 lb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Dip it into a water and measure the water displacement. You now have a known volume. Multiple by Marc's one cubic inch of steel weights 0.283 lb to get the weight. Get two bathroom scales and span them with a board. Put the anvil on the board. Add the measurements on each scale minus the weight of the board to determine the weight of the anvil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njanvilman Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 The paint appears to be original of your anvil. Leave it as is. If there is a weight marked on the anvil, it will be stamped in, on one of the sides, usually near the top. I will check your dimensions against a similar anvil in the Fisher & Norris Factory Museum, and will look it up from the literature I have. Answer will be posted in a few hours. The four 1's and S are internal codes used for quality control at the foundry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaperPatched Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I have one similar to yours. The dimensions of mine are 6-5/16" x 12-1/2 inches on the top, and 12-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches on the bottom. I had posted pictures in Show Me Your Anvils, but they were lost courtesy of Photo Pail, so I'll repost one here. This anvil was weighed in the back of my truck on a drive on scale at a local scrap yard and was 383 pounds: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 Thank you everyone for the replies. PaperPatched - thank you for the images. if yours is close to 13" high then our weights should be similar. Njanvilman - I was going to ask whether the black paint might be original. Don't worry - I like to leave my tools in as found 'old surface'. I look forward to hear what you have to say about weights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Cochran Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 10 hours ago, Marc1 said: 334 lb ... give or take Hint ... one cubic inch of steel weights 0.283 lb Just in case you were not aware, Fisher anvils are not made entirely of steel but instead have a cast iron body with a tool steel plate. That will throw the weight off using your method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 of course the difference is probably less than the calibration error of a typical bathroom scale... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 When figuring weights I remember that steel weighs 40.8# per square foot 1" thick, 490# per cubic foot. If it is 1/8" thick that is 1/8th of 40.8# or 5.1#. Makes it kind of easy to guesstimate a weight from some quick dimensions. A friend was given a Fisher Sawyer anvil recently, and it is a heavy bugger. I need to swing by sometime and check it out. These anvils were not designed for hot work. A cold saw blade was always between the hammer and the face. Joshua with the Fisher museum told me that the faces are very hard, and will chip from a missed blow, so you need to keep that in mind when forging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Sure, cast is lighter, and the cheaper it is the lighter it is. Cast for an anvil must be of higher quality or it would have not survived, so the difference is less than 10% for the lower section. We are talking approximation here, a bit like that other anvil and the bucket standing under it. I hope Mr Humphrey will post the weight and see if I am off and by how much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 16 minutes ago, Marc1 said: We are talking approximation here, a bit like that other anvil and the bucket standing under it. A bucket is a precision instrument, thankyouverymuch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 If you're working on a farm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 So if it is bucketing down can we use it to debate climate ? I remember some time ago i had a formula to guesstimate anvil weight from it's measurements. It worked most of the time but not always and ... I can't remember it exactly. The idea was to multiply all 3 dimensions as if it is a prism and multiply it by a factor ... I think it was 1/7 or 1/8 something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njanvilman Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Fisher lists this size anvil at approx 375 lb. They always did a final weighing and stamped in the actual weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 Thank you njanvilman - an educated approximation was just what I was looking for. Were these never cast with the weight designation on the base? Were they sold by weight or face size? I would have assumed that were sold in 250 - 300 - 350 - 400 etc etc or similar pound increments and casting patterns made to suit. Another member suggested that these have harder faces than London style anvils. Can you confirm this? Thank you everyone else for your suggestions. The lack of horn and heal make it rather unwieldy so it may have been a while before I got around to performing the water displacement test. Great idea though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njanvilman Posted January 13, 2018 Share Posted January 13, 2018 Fisher listed at least 75 different stock Sawmaker's anvils in their catalog. Some were identical weights, with different dimensions of the face and height. Some of the weight increments were as little as 5 lb, on the bigger ones they had 50 lb jumps. All of the Fisher sawmaker's anvils that I have that are marked with a weight, it was stamped in manually after the anvil was made. Check your anvil carefully for the stampings. I might have it. But I also have some that were never stamped too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 No weight stamp that I can find. Is this the standard base appearance for all Fisher anvils? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njanvilman Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Fisher Saw Anvils had many different designs, depending on the era and size. See the attached photo for some of the varieties. The ones shown here are between 50 and 191 lb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humphreymachine Posted January 15, 2018 Author Share Posted January 15, 2018 Impressive collection. What is the story with the example in the upper left and the one to its right? There appears to be a dovetail connection between a cast block and steel plate? What was the largest weight sawer's anvil commonly stocked by Fisher? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foundryman Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 I think what you're looking at there is the wooden pattern one of those anvils was cast from but I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.