Small but quality anvils

[Herb H.]

I'm looking for a smallish, 20 lb anvil for use indoors on a bench for finish work.  Are these out there, and how do you find them?  Or, would you suggest taking a segment of RR rail and grinding to appropriate shape and finishing that?

[Stash]

I would just use a chunk of rr track as-is, without grinding shapes on it. Unless you need that shape. No need to try and copy the shape of a London- style anvil. I keep a chunk in my basement wood shop for odds and end kinda stuff and that works fine. I just have a small assortment of other shaped metal bits that I can put in a vise, and I'm good to go. If I need more mass, I go out to my metal shop.

Steve

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

They are out there, depending upon where in the world you are located. I suggest reading this thread.

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

 

[Herb H.]

Thanks man. You're right, unless I want to build a collection. What's more practical than the Narrow Gauge Railroad Track I have on the porch? Since some of the work I do is jewelry work with silver and other precious metals, I'll probably want to take down the top some and polish it for that only for that. I can do that for one end, and just flattened the other one for general purposes. Thanks for the tip.

[stevomiller]

I’m guessing here because I’ve never done jewelry, and I’m not sure what other finish work you want to do at the bench.

How about the Old World Anvils 4” cube of 4140 hardened steel? They are $100 shipped. They also have their Austrian pattern starting at 7 pounds moving up in about 5lb increments.

I also see smaller flat jewelers block/shaped dappling blocks etc on Ebay starting at $25 or so.

Various machinist set up blocks, 1-2-3 blocks, v blocks etc? Most are smaller than you’re requesting but they’re hardened and usually polished.

Lastly, it’s bigger but I bought a 66lb anvil on eBay $140 shipped. Italian pattern, hardened steel (ruined a good file trying to radius an edge before switching to 4” angle grinder with flap wheel). It has about 90% rebound with a 1” bearing from a foot drop. I can post a rebound pic or video if wanted.

 

[Herb H.]

Thanks for the sourcing information. Some of those sound pretty neat. I'm also collect tools and really appreciate their function snd form

 I enjoy sometimes inspecting the tool as much using it. For money reasons, I'll probably just use that old Narrow Gauge Railroad Track for now. 

Thanks