resurfacing an anvil

[Hephaestus]

i recently scored a cast iron anvil (my first real one. yee-haw), and i was wondering if its possible to resurface an anvil with a grinder or something of the like. it seems to have been somewhat abused. its riddled with half moons and peen marks.

[racer3j]

If it is cast iron, and has no hardened plate on the face, then you could. It is likely homogenous but will always get beaten up. Can you tell us any more about the anvil? Is it Harbor Freight or one of the ebay ones? If it has a brand mark, the people here will know all, like the Great Karnak.
To truly grind a typical real working anvil, you would need a 7" commercial angle grinder with a new fine grade medium cupped, large diameter wheel. Then you can flat grind. BUT, unless you have a quick and light touch, you can overheat the ferrous metal and wreck whatever heat-treat might be there. And, unless you have spent a fair amount of time with a grinder, you will likely add some ugly "eyebrows" to the face. So, then you would need to consider the same configuration of backer and abrasive discs- less likely to dig and somewhat less likely to overheat the metal. Don't do anything until a veteran smith chimes in- I have had to precision grind many surfaces and joints with an angle grinder, but not anvils.mike

[ThomasPowers]

Resurfacing a cast iron anvil is like mopping a mud floor, no matter how much time you spend on it it will still be dirty.

Now if it's cast iron with a steel face like a Vulcan or Fisher it would be worth the doing---but be carefull as Vulcans have a tendency to have thin steel in the face. Fishers are a lot thicker in my experience.

[Hephaestus]

thanks for the info. where im pretty new at this type of thing and will probably ding it up anyway, maybe ill just leave it for now.