Had the opportunity to try out a new anvil this last weekend.  While it doesn't have the rebound of the Swede it's sitting on, it is quite serviceable.  Better yet, it's more easily transported.  Looking forward to using this anvil more.

I like it.

I've forged on a chunk of granite before, and it wasn't bad. Next time I have a little time to play, I'd like to try making a rock hammer and see how it works out. 

I've used boulders and really like a fine grained ultra mafic but limestone was nice. Please take it off your Swedish cast steel anvil and put it on a proper stand. There's no sense marring the face of top shelf anvil using it as a stand for a stone anvil. Yes?

Let us know how it works for you please.

Frosty The Lucky.

Just pick the right stone, some of them don't take the heat well, and become friable. Stone splinters hurt.

Thanks for the replies.  It's just an experiment for the fun of it.  A low cost functional anvil. And, Frosty, I assure you I didn't and won't damage the Swede.

WHEW! I didn't really think you'd take a chance on a cast Swedish steel anvil but you never know so I HAD to say something. 

A trick with a stone anvil and HOT steel is to not lay the steel on the anvil until you hit it. I held the steel just off the stone and drove it into the bolder with the blow. 

True words though, some stone is much more susceptible to HOT than others. Better safe than sorry eh?

Frosty The Lucky.

So I've got to ask. What is the best stone to use for an anvil?

Al

Not too soft.  Not too brittle.  Not too small.

Well, the last one I tried successfully was this metamorphic goop they have around parts of Atlanta called gabbro I think. It's got a little basalt, and olivine, and quartz, and I dunno what all. Kind of a Heinz 57 with a lot of grainy crystalline structure to it.  I found out it was tough driving fence posts, and figured anything that hard might work to pound on.  I used to break it out of the holes with a chunk of tractor axle, and that was a job and a half.  Worked pretty well, and you could find a flat-ish piece and dress it, to a point. Not as fun as a Columbian, but it worked.

Jade was a traditional favorite in China, Basalt in the Scandinavian areas.  Metallic Meteorites (nickel iron) where available in large pieces.

That baby sure does look rock solid, what normally happens when you have a miss hit? is there any benefit to having a stone anvil, like does it not suck the heat out as fast?

-Dally

Something fine grained without an obvious bedding plane. I found granite to be a little course grained but gneiss is smooth and worked fine. My favorite was a mafic maybe ultramafic boulder that felt like rubbing your hand on a water glass it was so smooth and was hard enough to ding the hammer. I hear marble makes a good anvil.

I like hammer stones to be longish potato shaped. There's enough mass but it's easy to hold and gets your hand away from HOT steel. If you've ever had your hand slip down a hammer stone.  Again, I look for smooth fine grain cobbles, mafic and ultramafic are my favorite. One of these days I'll have to move the truck hood size mafic boulder decorating the turn in our driveway up to the shop for an outdoor primitive BIG anvil. 3-4 tons anyway, maybe more I don't know how deeply it's sunken in the 20 years since I put it there.

I've MADE willow switch handles work on hammer stones but they're not great, scrounging some steel rod and making a wrapped steel handle works a lot better.

Thomas, are mafics metamorphosed basalts? I don't recall, heck I keep trying to spell mafic with a ph. 

Frosty The Lucky.

The benefit to having a stone anvil is it's a whole lot better than having NO anvil.  However even a hunk of scrap steel will work better. Some of the NeoTribal Metalsmiths used stone trying to get back to smithing's primitive roots.

Mafic: said of an igneous rock composed of one or more ferromagnesian minerals, also, said of those minerals. It is the complement of Felsic

Bates and Jackson "Glossary of Geology"

I'll look mafic up and get a better handle on it. Thanks. Most of my rock anvils have been the results of opinions by office mooks who don't think you can forge anything without "real" anvil and hammers. Given the choice I use the Sorceress on her stand with hammers and tongs in the racks. Camp fire's still okay, fire's fire's fire. 

Off to search the web and update/refresh my geology data base. Fingers crossed for a PDF. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Take a look at the basalt sledgehammer at 1:13 in THIS VIDEO.

On 6/14/2019 at 3:48 AM, JHCC said:

Take a look at the basalt sledgehammer at 1:13

He was swinging a hammer stone in the first 10 seconds. The narrator spend tie talking about them but had trouble keeping anvil and hammer straight. 

I love these videos, it's good for the newcomers to see what they actually need to be a blacksmith. A couple rocks, hot fire and iron to make into things. 

Frosty The Lucky.