Jarntagforge Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 Hello experts, I came across what I think is a 310 lb Claudinon Firminy anvil. I'm seriously considering driving 4h to pick it up. I already haggled the price down from 600 € to 400 €. I can't find any text or numbers on the pictures, neither could the seller. But what are those lines and imperfections on the side of the anvil? It looks like it's cracked but I seriously doubt that. Could it be that this is a full body cast steel anvil and the casting work was done poorly? It seems like there's some obtrusions on the face too but those can be grinded. I plan to weld the sides also. What say you, experts? Do I shoot myself in the foot if I buy this anvil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 I would buy it if the ring & rebound is consistent across the whole face. Also I would not do any grinding on it until I used it for about a year. What I see mostly in the pictures is casting marks from the mold. Not sure in the next to the last picture if the dark line is a crack or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 12, 2020 Author Share Posted December 12, 2020 Thanks for your thoughts. I heard that old anvils break sometimes. The leg surely looks like it could be cracked. I'm a little worried that it would break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 Bring a light ball pein hammer when you go look at it. If it's cracked you'll hear it the first time you tap it, it'll sound dead, maybe even have a buzz that stops very quickly, not quite instantly. I THINK most if not all of the marks are casting marks. I could be wrong but they don't "track" like cracks to me. By "track" I refer to the line of the crack, for example a crack in class looks (tracks) entirely differently than a crack in ceramic. Yes? I certainly wouldn't grind on it until I used it a while. First, what little damage I see wouldn't have a lot of effect on most anything I do, a smooth area about 2x the hammer face's is plenty in my experience. Also, hammering hot steel on it will shine it up and drive the edges of: dents, dings and cuts back flush and fill them. What puts marks on an anvil's face will almost always remove them. Experiment with hammering blemishes back down before you do ANY grinding on it. Give her a good wire brushing for sure but please no grinding on the face, it's almost always a mistake and removes many years of useful life if not ruining anvils outright. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 If the leg is cracked, I don't see a problem with welding it up, just no welding on the hardened face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 Those don't look like cracks to me at all. They look like the mold spalled when it was poured. It wasn't cast in a steel mold like a Soderfors it was sand cast and different binders can do weird things. It's not a sculpture so surface flaws have to be pretty bad to get it broken up and remelted. Checking the foot with the flaw is as easy as flipping it over and taping the feet with the hammer. If it has a significantly different sound it MAY be damaged. If it'd been hit hard enough to crack a foot it'd probably rock on a flat smooth surface. I'd definitely go take a look at it. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 12, 2020 Author Share Posted December 12, 2020 15 minutes ago, Frosty said: Bring a light ball pein hammer when you go look at it. If it's cracked you'll hear it the first time you tap it, it'll sound dead Thanks for the advice, Frosty! I'll do that. 10 minutes ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said: If the leg is cracked, I don't see a problem with welding it up, just no welding on the hardened face. Okay, that's good to know because I want to buy it. But of course if there was some great deterrant then I'd be rational. 19 minutes ago, Frosty said: Checking the foot with the flaw is as easy as flipping it over and taping the feet with the hammer. Thanks for the tip. I don't know why I don't remember these simple good tips myself. That's such an easy thing I can ask the seller to do tomorrow. Many thanks. If it doesn't sound significantly different I'm gonna buy it. If it does sound different then I guess a crack goes right through the leg and I don't think I'd wanna grind that open and weld it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 I've been reading similar posts from guys on Iforge for long time and getting the seller to test for possible sale killing flaws has usually gotten negative results. The most common is just ignoring the request and a few have been dishonest "results." The only way to be sure is to test it yourself. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 12, 2020 Author Share Posted December 12, 2020 Yeah I can imagine some are dishonest. If I drive over there I will for sure test it myself. Ball bearing and all. But Finns in general are an honest people, almost at fault. So I'll take his word for it at first and then see for myself. I'll be bringing my girlfriend along for the road trip like usual, and stop at some fancy restaurant! Why did you move to Alaska? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 12, 2020 Share Posted December 12, 2020 Need to wirebrush the face clean to do a good ball bearing test. The other thing is that for a good sized anvil to fail in use; it has to pretty much be abuse. Check and if the anvil doesn't look like it was abused then it's probably not a crack! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 4 hours ago, Jarntagforge said: Why did you move to Alaska? Ever been to Southern California? I'd wanted to live in the wilderness since I was pretty young and S. Cal is anything but, I could ride around more people on my bike than the total population of Alaska. My older Brother had moved up a few years before the Alaska Pipe line project started and helped while I got established. I never worked the pipe line but there were jobs and decent pay everywhere, all the old timers had pipe line and support jobs. Every once in a while I'd get homesick enough to visit family and friends in S. Cal. and it reminded me of why I'm never going back. No matter where you go there are good and bad aspects but Alaska is the place I dislike the least, so here I am. I figure if I leave for good it'll be through tectonic motion. Good and bad, even in places where everybody is honest, sometimes you just don't want to know the truth. All the best on that anvil, I have plenty for my purposes but it'd sure look good in my shop, I'd even clear room for it. Maybe even hang a display light. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 13, 2020 Author Share Posted December 13, 2020 12 hours ago, Frosty said: Ever been to Southern California? I've been to some 8 countries in Europe, and Australia. Haven't been to the US. I considered going to Abana this year but I had no money, and good thing as it was cancelled. Seems my workshop build and possible house build will seep up my money. I've seen California on TV like every week, at least every month all my life. Looks good. But then I read about how 200 000 dollars isn't enough to support a family in California and it makes me wonder. I don't dislike that much about the Scandinavian countries. Seems like we struck a great balance in politics, well, all of western Europe also. I do wanna go to the US and check out the Rocky mountains, California, cowboy Texas, rural south-East. The Grand Canyon. New York. We have no metropolises in Scandinavia. And we have no mountains in Finland. I did see some on Lofoten, Norway. They're a pain move around on by foot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 I first read that as "mountains were a pain to move around"---and they sure are! I've worked on international projects before and the one thing many Europeans seem to have trouble grasping is how large the USA is and how far apart things can be. If I wanted to go to New York City it would take 3 very long days of interstate driving just to get there from where I live and most folks would add another day or two to make it a less stressful drive. We also don't have much in the way of public transport so generally you have to fly, expensive, or drive, time consuming. Just California goes from desert to metropolis to red wood forest, to farms and vineyards! Hot and dry to cold and wet, over crowded to pretty empty. It's not the largest state either! So don't over plan your trip and be sure to allot time both to travel and to stop and see things! (Some of our favorite experiences in Europe were completely serendipitous!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 15, 2020 Author Share Posted December 15, 2020 Thanks for the tips, Thomas. Yeah the US is almost like a continent. Best to stick in one area. California, Grand Canyon, something. The seller of the anvil provided me with more pictures and a video of the anvil tapping test. https://youtu.be/09ZA6xElHXM The anvil seems in good shape. Wish he had understood to clean the dirt off! I also managed to find a buyer already for an anvil I have but don't like much, so funding is secured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 You have me drooling into my cup of tea, I'd love an anvil with that configuration! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 17, 2020 Author Share Posted December 17, 2020 Did anyone notice the underside? I was sure it was dirt, but now an engineer friend said it looked like holes, and he may be right. I sent the seller a question again, let's see what he says... I imagine the anvil would hold up fine for hand hammering. Well I do use a 4.5 lb hammer... and I hit with the power of rye bread and occasional porrage! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted December 17, 2020 Share Posted December 17, 2020 To me, they just look like surface voids from the casting process, and while they are not exactly attractive, the twin facts that they are on the underside (and thus essentially invisible) and that they have not caused the anvil to break apart hitherto, suggest to me that -- given the size and weight of the anvil -- they are probably not an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarntagforge Posted December 17, 2020 Author Share Posted December 17, 2020 The buyer replied and said they were holes. The casting must have been really poor with holes under the anvil. This along with the side marks make me less inclined to buy this anvil... But .... what the, it's a Claudinon Firminy 310 lb! It's a cool anvil. I think I might have to take this under my wing. The buyer replied and said they were holes. The casting must have been really poor with holes under the anvil. This along with the side marks make me less inclined to buy this anvil... But .... what the, it's a Claudinon Firminy 310 lb! It's a cool anvil. I think I might have to take this under my wing. On 12/17/2020 at 9:44 AM, JHCC said: To me, they just look like surface voids from the casting process, and while they are not exactly attractive, the twin facts that they are on the underside (and thus essentially invisible) and that they have not caused the anvil to break apart hitherto, suggest to me that -- given the size and weight of the anvil -- they are probably not an issue. Thanks, that very reasonable. They can't be seen and the anvil has held up so far. Very reasonable. Also, a question, what force expressions or expletives can I use on this site that doesn't give me a warning? When I mentioned the place down under I got one warning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted December 17, 2020 Share Posted December 17, 2020 Generally, don't say anything you wouldn't want to say to (or have to explain to) a three-year-old. Don't try to get around the rule by using deliberate misspellings or equivalents in non-English languages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 17, 2020 Share Posted December 17, 2020 The classics, darn it and of course "May maledictions pursue this nameless thing to the uttermost depths of world slime!"; at least I seem to remember getting by with those previously... I know that having kids cleaned up my word choice a lot! (And now I have Grandkids...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 Expletives can be described to a degree and not get you in trouble, it takes practice though. I get edited and notes now and then, sometimes it's a typo sometimes a mod misreads or draws a parallel I didn't notice. I was temporarily moderated for using "sprinkle" in a way that implied urination. I was playing too close to the edge and deserved a talking to. A phone call from Glenn and I was unmoderated shortly after. It's a learning curve, a little practice is all it takes. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaamax Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Frosty, How about "tinkle". I actually use that word to my three year old... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 We look at both the actual words used, and consider the intent of the wording. For instance, misspelling does not change the intent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 Vewy twue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 John; Is that your Christmas Twee? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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