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Redressing anvil welded edges


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I’ve been reading information on this site for awhile and this is my first post. Great information is being shared here, and thank you for that. I am fairly new to blacksmithing (about 4 years) but have been working with metals for many. I have a 150lb Peter Wright anvil  , which seems to be in pretty good shape. It appears to have been repaired along the edges and since had acquired some edge damage. The horn also has been blunted. As I get more into blacksmithing my questions are: 1. can I or should I redress the edges (by grinding)to clean them up and be able to the use the radii for forming or should I leave be and stay away from them when working. 2. should I unblunt the horn, either by grinding or heating/hammering. Note the face is very flat.


 

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Check the edge temper with a file; if excessively hard, (compare with other places), then draw temper.  Dressing those edges are a personal preference. You could make use of the chipping by dressing those spots to different radii which can be handy depending on what type(s) of smithing you do. Or you could leave them alone and use the anvil as is for another generation or two and make a hardy hole block that has the edge(s) you need for specific jobs.

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I don't think the edges have been repaired.  That looks quite similar to the damage on my PW when I acquired it. To me that looks like more or less normal wear and tear on the hardened face plate.  I ended up using a flap disk just a little on the edges to create a radius that would be less likely to chip out more.  Keep in mind that any metal you remove is gone forever.  You may want to use it as is for a while before doing anything at all.  If it's like my PW, you probably get 90+% rebound since that face plate is quite hard - which also makes it more prone to chipping.

Unless you need to work small eyes or other small circle shapes I would not change the horn.  Even if you do have that need you can create a hardy hole mounted bick (small horn) to handle the job. The first time you accidentally run your thigh into it you'll understand why many horns are blunted.  If you do change it, grinding would be the better method.  Heating that spot to the point where you can forge it could easily transfer enough heat to the hardened plate to soften it more than you'd like.

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you.

Good question, glad you asked. The face looks pretty good and the edge damage is pretty typical of a HARD face plate. There is good edge a little behind the sweet spot that's radiused and lots of pretty sharp edge from there out the tail, probably around the end as well. There's some radiused edge in front of (towards the horn) the sweet spot too. 

You can work with that just fine and stay away from the chipped edges until you have a better idea of what you need/want. Be aware sharp corners (edges) on hardened high carbon steel is prone to chipping if struck hard with a hardened object like a hammer. I'd say the larger chipped section over the heart was done with heavy hammering, perhaps strikers. 

You have a good working anvil now and dressing the edges wouldn't be a bad thing. NOT necessary NOW but not a bad thing if you don't get carried away. Trying to grind them square and sharp WILL ruin the anvil by removing virtually all the face plate. Yes?

I certainly would NOT weld the edges, that can cause more damage than it cures. There's always a risk when welding an unknown high carbon steel, the benefits really need to outweigh the risks and your anvil just isn't that damaged. NO WELDING! Please.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Thanks for the advice. As to the edges not looking like they have been welded: I suspect that some welding might have been done, if you look closely at the two side photos, there appears to be a horizontal line or parallel transition to the top surface. I know that the hardened face plate is not very thick and this line appears to be about 3/8 or 1/2 inches down which would be below the top plate thickness? I suspect this shows the depth of the weld repair from the side view? Am I wrong at suspecting this? When I acquired the anvil I had thought the edge damage was to the top plate, later I noticed these lines on each side.

I am reluctant to try to chance anything, because I want to preserve the anvil. My dating using the AIA text puts it in the 1860-1880 range. It has the earlier transition marking or line between top and bottom halves (behind the chain) no England stamp and no Solid Wrought stamp.

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Unless repairs were performed by someone who really knew how to properly weld an anvil and then heat treat afterwards I doubt it's been repaired.  The damaged areas clearly have chipping which indicates hard steel.  Someone who didn't know how to properly repair an anvil would most likely have used a softer material for welding which would result in more of a mushrooming over the side rather than brittle pieces breaking off.  Also, unless a repair was done well there would probably be some significant variance in rebound where the repairs met the original material. 

It's pretty clear that someone did a fair amount of forging over the edges in the sweet spot. 3/8 to 1/2 inch is not unreasonable or out of the ordinary for the thickness of the hardened face plate.

Someone with better eyes and/or more knowledge than me might pick up something I'm missing, but nothing I could see in those pics indicates that the edges were welded after manufacture.

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Naw, 3/8" - 1/2" is about right.  As to the line being an artefact of an arc weld, I'd be honored to shake the hand of anyone who could lay bead with penetration that made a straight line. Even using a chill plate you get some wobble in the transition.

Questioning what you see is a good thing, well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

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I'm a proponent for repairing anvils,,, so,,

You can fix the horn by using a rosebud and two hammers. Rock your anvil back on its back edge so the horn points more or less up. Take a good heat back a few inches on the horn. Use your daily driver hammer and a heavier hammer to draw the tip back out. Use the heavy hammer to back up the blows of your lighter hammer. It becomes the anvil 

As far as dressing the edges, they are pretty rough. It's a personal choice. We have the ability today to bring old anvils up to "new" for reasonable money. This means your 100+ year old anvil will be in new condition going into the next hundred years. Not to mention having a pristine anvil to work on. 

Can you weld and follow directions? If so the cost is less than 50 bucks and your time. It's not a difficult process. Got a friend who can weld and follow instructions and can you do the grunt work for him? (Grinding). A welding shop is the most expensive, but still reasonable when you figure the life of the repair. I stress the "follow instructions" because many welders believe a less expensive rod will be just as good. It's not. A good enough rod will give you a 10 year fix if used in a working shop whilst the proper rod will give you a 100 year fix. 

Here's what I believe is the best process for repairing an anvil:

 

https://www.anvilmag.com/smith/anvilres.htm

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The Gunther/Schuler process linked above is the gold standard for anvil repairs and has been proven in on a lot of anvils for a lot of years!

Now I prefer a blunt anvil horn, I'd just grind that so it doesn't have a "lip" and make a bic for the hardy hole for working things a sharp tipped horn will be used for.

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Lol, differences. The horn's primary function in my opinion is to turn a scroll. Ask or watch any farrier. It's convergence creats an infinite number of curves to bend your scrolls. A sharp tip means you can turn those bitter end finials literally to zero and have complete use of the horn with no reason for a Bic. Thus, for me this is not a reason for a Bic. There's obviously other reasons. The only reason I can see for a blunt end is to not have a sharp point to stick your leg. Lol, and there is a far better way to keep that from happening. Anvil Situational awareness?

Truth be known I rarely use the horn any more. Nearly all my scroll finials are turned free hand over the edge of the anvil and with my sets of bending forks on my post vice for the rest. The horn's primary use for me now is to tweak or fix a flat spot in a scroll that is too tight for my forks. And here the sharp point is the most used part.

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Well, I decided to at least clean up the end of the horn for now. I wanted to be careful so I took a file and removed the mushroomed upset part. This way if I want to put some small diameter over the horn to fine tune it won’t catch on the mushroom. It filed pretty easy, easier than I expected.

thanks everyone for the advice. I think I’ll experiment more and be careful about the edges. When I decide upon what best corner radii I need then I will try to clean up the top edges. 

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