Stump adaptation for anvil substitute.

[Strike]

I couldn't make an anvil happen, so I got a stump and sawed into a stump as to insert a C-Girder into it so it would work as an 'anvil'. I know this is probably unacceptable to most of yall, , but It's working well with a leaf blower powered jabod charcoal forge, and it works great. I still have no ANGLES to work other than a flat plane, but it was free chunks of C-girders and after hammering them into the stump with a 3lb mini-sledge (or whatever you call it) works great.

[ThomasPowers]

A solid chunk of steel works even better and has been used as an anvil for over 3000 years now---though the earlier ones were solid chunks of wrought iron or meteorite.

You seem to be confusing an anvil with a london pattern anvil; have you looked through the improvised anvil thread?  Or even:

http://www.marco-borromei.com/fork.html

London pattern anvils have been used only for a couple of centuries in a fairly limited geographical area DON'T get trapped thinking it's the only type of anvil!  (go onto Youtube and search out the National Geographic's "Living Treasures of Japan" show and look at the anvil being used by the Japanese Master sword smith! He's doing ok work without a london pattern anvil!)

[Fazer]

Strike.. I came across another hunk of rail line if you are interested. It's much the same as the last piece, I think a bit longer. If you are interested.

[Charles R. Stevens]

might I direct your attention to the brick carved into the flange and the fuller and hot cuts cut into the web. Useful additions to your c rail anvil.

 

[Marc1]

If it wasn't for folks obsession with anvil hardness and 'rebound', not to mention shape,  more novice would consider building an anvil using just a chunk of mild steel, or even a thick 2 or 3" plate laying flat on a solid stand like a striking anvil.

So rather than talking about crumbling useless decrepit museum pieces, we would then be talking about how to make a square hole for the hardy for example. 

And tools for the hardy ... all good beginners projects. 

Surely better than a piece of rail, be it horizontal vertical or tied in a knot with a working surface you need to find with a magnifying glass

[MC Hammer]

It's a start and someday you will have something better and you will look back and smile.  Just keep looking to upgrade.  Your next acquisition should be to find a solid square piece of steel and then so on until you find an anvil.  Don't feel bad and don't apologize, you are doing the best you can with what resources you have.  

With that said, I did notice a HUGE difference when I got a better anvil and better tools.  I couldn't believe the rebound difference.  There's a lot of debate on this subject, but I noticed quickly that forging became more successful and easier with the improved tooling.  Now I'm at the point where I can make tools I need which is a huge plus.  I just made a couple of punches the other day because I didn't have those sizes.  

 

[Donal Harris]

Never knew those were called C-girders. We call them channel iron here in Oklahoma. They are used to make utility trailers and truck beds.

This is what I used as an anvil from the time I started about a year and a half ago till tomorrow when I will mount the anvil I purchased a few days ago to the stump in the photo. It looks like a piece of railroad track, but isn’t. The recycling yard here in Purcell where I picked it up said it was part of a bridge being torn down. They had a metal bin full of them. I only had to pay scrap steel price for it.  Meaning it cost me just $10 or so. I believe the actual scrap price for it would really have been about $5, but I wasn’t in the mood to quibble over $5 when I knew I would likely want to come back again, because Nemo let me walk around the yard. The larger places I tried in OKC would not.

That chunk of whatever it is really works fine for the piddling around I do. The only real problem I had with it was it had no horn or Hardy and Pritchel holes. When I needed a horn I either used a trailer axle, spindle on the end of the axel, or which ever size of random bits of drill pipe I have scavenged.

For Hardy tools my plan was to just mount them in a stump. Those are available free at the City of Purcell’s recycling center. When one of the City’s work crews removes a tree, they dump any sizable sections to the side at the center for anyone to pick up and take home. I was just about to try forging the first stump tool when I found the Mousehole I bought. I had chopped the pointy end off of a bale spike and bent it 90 degrees to make up for the bridge piece not having a horn, but hadn’t actually finished carving a hole in a stump to drive it down into. I may or may not do that at some future time. The bale spike wasn’t easy to bend. It is a little over two inches thick at the point where I chopped it off. Had I to do over again I would probably have made the bend BEFORE cutting it to length. I think the bend may have been easier. If nothing else I would have had more material to hold onto. 

TL;DR: Necessity is the Mother of Invention. You don’t need an actual anvil to do this. Just continue to improvise as you have done. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

Chanel iron, C Chanel or C girder

[ThomasPowers]

Looks like part of the rocker set up to allow a bridge to expand and contract in length as the ambient temperature changes.

Scrap price at my local scrapyard is 20 US cents a pound.