Hello, 

 

While cleaning up an ancient (1950'ies) railway workshop near Brussels, I found this Beauty covered in hardened tar. The guys there thought it was useless cheap cast iron. 

I took her home and started cleaning.. And I found this anvil, German style, but the marks puzzle me. No indication of weight, I guess 200 pounds at least (100 kilo). 

One size has a mark that is an S with like a Z inside, the other has two marks besides each other one reads FO and the other reads AL. It is hardly used (still perfectly flat), and has what looks like an unusually thick faceplate (2 inch) which is really hard. Also extending in the round horn. 

Can anyone tell me something about her? 

 

Mvg Bart 

 

I cant help you on the info but gatta say thats a beauty. Give a quick thanks to whoever poured tar on it years ago.

Watch that "ancient" stuff. That's the era I was born in.

Steve

Nice anvil, by the way.

They did good work back then!   (me too)

   Hey Bart,

   Nice find, hope this helps.

            N.N.F.                Beautiful, Manchester, Michigan. USA

It looks like the first sign, but I cannot read the text.. Polish? 

The description mentions the name Skoda.

The main Skoda works are located in,  what is now called,  the Czech Republic.

My guess is that the language is Czech.

The logos that you showed are NOT the Skoda trade that is used today.

Incidentally, the company is owned by folks in the Netherlands.  But people are not too sure who they are.  The company has changed hands several since it was sold by the Czech government

They have subsidiary factories all over Europe and abroad.

SLAG.

I thought is was from the Skoda Works as well but couldn’t find examples of anvils they made for reference.  It was then I gave up...

Lou L.

I have not seen anvils made by the company, but my knowledge of that art is limited.

The company made,  among other things,  huge castings for navy battleships. (Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Also big artillery pieces, machine guns, nuclear power plant components, etc.  etc.

They still do.

SLAG.

You might try contacting the company.  You are not that far away from some of their factories.

 

Wow, nice anvil!  If you got it for free or scrap prices it was the opportunity of a lifetime.  You did a great job cleaning her up.  Did you take any before pictures when it was covered in tar?

On 7/16/2018 at 3:15 PM, Stash said:

Watch that "ancient" stuff. That's the era I was born in.

Some of us were born before that era and at times it shows.

Yesterday I weighed it, 115 kilo's (230 pounds). I tried her out, works really good. The face is HRC 60 tip to tip (tested with hardness files). absolutely lovely anvil. As for price, I got it (along with a couple of other things) for 2 beers

So I assume it's a czech anvil. Does anyone know what the FO - AL mean ?

It has been a good week for me.

I’ll give you a CASE of beer for it, you’ll make a huge profit!  

Gorgeous!!!

I'm going to nominate this as "the score of the year!"

Hello;

 

 

Well sorry to drag up the old post; but I got a reply from a Skoda Works foundry ...

They confirm making anvils like this from the 30'ies to the 70'ies. They also told me my assumption that it has a hard face is wrong, it's one piece cast; but the top part is ground; the rest isn't, which makes the horizontal line. And I can confirm that; as below the line where the grinding stops, it's still hard. The feet are still hard, but less hard. I assume differential hardening ? Makes the upsetting block more usefull I guess. The steel they used for this is extremely pure and clean tool steel, as they were quite expensive. I checked it, and in fact it is almost like a solid block H13. My other anvil is a industrial press die made from hardened 1.2379 (D2), and it behaved similar. The 100 pound Vulcan anvil I have feels like soft iron in comparison.

They don't have a clue what the FO-AL means; altough they admit not being in charge of the foundry for about 15 years when the Nazi's took over. 

So anyone who speaks Czech any clue what FO-AL means ?

 

greetz; bart

 

 

Differential hardening or differential tempering; or *both*!

Thank you for reporting back; there's a lot of us that are really interested in little odd bits of info on these things.

Cast solid steel, NICE. Soderfors hardened their cast steel anvils under a water tower with a metered stream of water on the face after the anvil was broken out of the mold. When the water ran out the residual heat in the anvil's body tempered it. The foot wasn't cooled by the water stream so wasn't hardened as much.

Sound familiar? I LOVE my Soderfors anvil, I've never struck finer. I'll have to keep my eyes open for a Skoda eh? 

You made a SWEET save and deserve the benefits. Well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

Well Frosty, what you describe would be the most correct with the facts. Like the czech guys describe - solid steel, cast one-piece, hardened tempered, then the face got ground flat. It would also account for the reason why the hardness seems to lower from the top (about 60 HRC) to the feet (between 45 and 50 HRC). Or at least, that's the impression I get with hardness files.

I absolutely love it too. Makes my vulcan feel like iron ... at least hot iron doesn't move as much on the vulcan as on this skoda anvil. 

Thanks for the info guys..

If you want one, there's another one for sale:

Commercial link removed

I've had a chat with the woman selling it - Friendly but doesn't know much about anvils -, and this one also came from a train workshop (same train company), from Liege (100km east of brussels). They must have bought more than one, and since the train company is closing a lot of workshops this years ... Mine is in better condition tough

 

Edited January 6, 20206 yr by Mod44