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Odd Anvil - WHAT IS IT??


rtr

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Hey guys......new to this site and wanted to share pictures of an anvil my grandfather has had for around 20-30 years or so. He got it from US Steel plant, where he worked, and brought it home. They were tearing down some buildings and were going to throw it away and he had it loaded on his truck to bring home. We mounted it on a steel work table so it could be swiveled and rotated. Never have had a reason to use it, but it is one of the biggest and coolest anvils we have ever seen. Each "leg" of the anvil is a different size. They are all the "half-moon" shape.It is also extremely heavy, so no worries of anyone stealing it!! haha.

I'm hoping someone here can help us identify it and tell us more about it. 

Anvil.JPG

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Good morning RTR, I can't tell you exactly what that is but it has the look of a mandrel for forming radiuses of different sizes in either sheet metal or bar stock. It could be a part of something else. I use various mandrels for such purposes some originally intended for that and some found objects. You did a great job in mounting it to be a useful tool. If it is cast iron I wouldn't do any heavy pounding say with a sledge hammer. 

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Welcome to IFI, I always suggest reading this thread to get the best out of the forum.

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/53873-read-this-first/

Sorry I can't help identifying your anvil/mandrel but can say I would love to have it, so many things it could be used for.

 

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From the American Welding Society  webpagea:  "When you drill steel, it makes chips and shavings that are easy to recognize. When you drill cast iron it will make a fine, graphite like dust. You only need to use a 3/16 or 1/4 drill, and only go deep enough to identify the shavings. It works 99% of the time."

The spark test is to touch it to a grinding wheel and look at the sparks it produces, I suggest you do this with a known piece of cast iron as well  and compare.

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The drill is the easiest way to do it. Many new anvils are made out of ductile cast iron - not all cast iron is the same, there are a few grades.

And don't be so sure someone could not steal that.  A friend had an entire 1,000# safe stolen out of his house.... A tow truck would move your table quite easily.

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A safe is nothing. A friend of mine "owed" a "builder" a thousand dollars and the only reason he never got paid was because the roof never got finished and the building suffered major water damage from the wicked Michigan Upper Peninsula winter. So any way the guy came in the next spring and stole the whole building and everything in it. Including guns a couple quads, $10,000 worth of tongue and grooved cedar, and countless other things. All the state cops said was he had a legal right to "repossess" the building because he was never paid. As for the contents they told him he was making it up to get back at the guy.

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Just making a guess here--on some wire mills they have to hammer a bend on the end of the wire (and similar items like narrow strip from slitters) when starting them on a coiler--basically a hook to get the coiling started.  

Remember--wire to a steel mill is often  3/4" diameter or larger--it is coiled before "straighten and cut" operations that give the familiar straight round bar people usually see.  For example, all that large diameter wire for auto and railroad springs comes off coils--not long straight pieces.  For our own operations, we buy 5/16" dia round bar as coiled wire and do the straighten and cut operation ourselves.  I've personally seen as big as 3/4 come in coil form--and I know there is larger but I don't know the top end of practicality for coiled stock.

 

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On 4/24/2018 at 6:21 PM, ThomasPowers said:

RTR' "old" for anvils usually starts around 200 and goes back a couple of centuries more.  I have an 1828 anvil I still use for smithing.

Most of my anvils are over 100.  That is a great anvil though and I envy your having it!

No telling how old it is. I was just saying that it is "old" and it was considered "old" when US Steel wanted to throw it away 30 years ago. I guess there is no real way to tell, huh? 

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Getting past the time you could talk with the "old folks" and see what they remembered.  When I bought my screwpress at a factory auction I actually met a fellow who remembered when they bought it in 1959 and could tell me that they didn't use it much as they got a hydraulic press in the 60's and nobody wanted the use the "old tech" anymore.

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  • 5 years later...

New to the site. My grandfather also gave me something similar. He always called it a sheet metal workers anvil but I tried to find it on the internet and have no luck. It's not nearly as heavy duty as yours. But does have half round extensions, though. One of the photos is shown with it upside down. You can see where it is meant to bolt to a table and slid back-and-forth as needed. You're help would greatly be appreciated on its identification.

20230623_175659.jpg

20230623_175603.jpg

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I don't know, it isn't rare though I don't know if they're still being used. My short stint making armor led me to bid on the stuff I have and it's mostly just been there since. It's not my thing. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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  • 4 months later...

Jake, just last week I bought one in Dallas Texas for 50$, mine is about 3ft long, when I bought it there were about 6 or 7, some that were 5ft were going for 100$, I think I got a good price and besides those I haven't seen many elsewhere. Mine does not have that bolt/slide but I was already thinking of fabing something similar.

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