What is the ideal wood type / wood species for an anvil stand?

[Kevin.exe]

I come from a woodwork background, and plan to laminate a bunch of boards together into a block where the anvil rests on end grain.

My question is, what properties of wood are important to look for? So far I've seen split resistance. But does it make a big performance difference moving metal using softwood (pine, douglas fir, redwood) vs using hardwoods (ash, hickory, white oak)?

And does the type of wood have a significant effect on ringing? For example hickory and ash are good at shock absorption, so baseball players use them for bats to save their arms. But maple is used for instruments since its good for producing sound (which is not ideal for ringing lol). Would maple help move more metal at the cost of ringing? Or is taking a hit on shock absorption worth it?

I haven't seen anyone do experiments and comparisons on these properties around the web, so I don't know how much it can matter.

[ThomasPowers]

Elm was a traditional wood used for anvil stumps because of it's resistance to splitting.  Resistance to rot would be a plus too.

I'd like to have an anvil stand made from Osage Orange with a twisted grain.   What I have used is rough sawn Oak, creosote impregnated softwood---old mine timber, Cedar dimensional lumber; cottonwood; pretty much all at the same time. None impressed me enough to get rid of the others.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Kevin, glad to have you. 

Looking for the ideal is one of those forlorn hope type quests. Two things I look for in a wood stand, hard dense wood is better than soft and reasonably rot resistant. It's going to sit on the ground or floor though that's secondary.

Screwed and glued end grain makes a fine anvil stand. Some of the pines are very strong as is Douglas Fir. If you have the time and energy pulling pallets apart would probably make a good hard stand.

The mass of the anvil will provide the working resistance to movement you need to move metal, a solid, secure stand at the right height for you is more important than the almost insignificant differences in wood densities. I changed my old punky spruce stand for a welded steel tripod quite a while ago but not so much for the rigidity but for the sound damping nature of steel on steel as opposed to steel on wood.

Don't worry about preserving the ring, unless you actually damage the anvil face ring doesn't mean a thing. Except maybe at the end of the day when your ears are ringing. Hmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[MendoH2o]

I think if I was going to be giving something the beating of a lifetime, I’d find an Elm log and mount it to that. In my experience Elm’s tangled up grain and hardness are a winning combination for abuse. 
If I was going for looks and hardness, I’d make a vertical grain butcher block of Maple and Walnut and band it with iron. It would be a real stunner. 

[ThomasPowers]

Petrified wood?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The best wood for an anvil stand is free for the taking with permission.

[Randy Griffin]

Creosote. Termites ate the last two hardwood stumps I had.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

My smithy is open air

I have some sand stands for a couple of my anvils an my next stand I’m gonna try out a tripod for my portable kit,

but I do have a 225 mounted on a oak stump out there that does alright,

Personally I’m not concerned about a stump lasting forever, when it rots out I’ll throw it in the shop stove and set the anvil on another stump,

but I burn wood so I always have a ready supply of oak an hickory stumps so they seem disposable/recyclable to me,

[BillyBones]

My anvil stand is made from 4 pieces of 4x4, 2 pieces of 2x8, ringed top and bottom with 2x4. Just the regular old pine boards that you find at any local box store. My set up was outside for a good 3 years now has been moved inside the past 2-2 1/2 years. Still going strong hold a ~153# anvil. 

As a side note, Louisville Slugger uses maple and birch for baseball bats.  

[M Johnston]

I have an almost identical stand as BillyBones, but with Redwood instead of pine, for rot and pest resistance.  It is 6+ years old and still good.

[anvil]

Best wood is whatever ya got.  End grain up, 2' or so in the ground. Ya can't beat it, so to speak, but its great to beat on.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Anything that the local fire wood folks don’t like because it won’t split easily. So elm and sycamore around here. But as said, what ever you got works well.  . 

Of note is cotton wood for demmo’s as its light and hard to split.

[Frosty]

Everybody keeps saying wood that doesn't split is important. Seriously who here can hit an anvil hard enough to split a wood stand? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

I've been using a section of ponderosa pine log for years with no problems.  No elm or other hardwoods available around here.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[anvil]

Me too Ponderosa Pine for the first 20. Then I moved and left a perfectly good stump in the ground chock full of good memories.

[Jobtiel1]

My stump is a piece of wood that was sitting in the backyard as a chopping block for atleast 10 years. Hard, twisted stuff, looks like it might've been chestnut.

It holding up fine, i put some pieces of pine underneath to make it a bit taller as the anvil was too low.

~Jobtiel

[ThomasPowers]

Frosty, it's not splitting from anvil impact, it's splitting from drying out or the wet/dry cycle that is the issue.   I once used a hollow log for an anvil stump for demos as it was light to transport. I would not like to do production work on it though!

[Frosty]

Ah, that makes more sense.  My old spruce block checked in several places top to bottom but it didn't come close to splitting. I can't tell you how happy wood that split itself as it dried would make folks who heat with wood.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Self splitting firewood?!? Sign me up! 

does it stack itself too? Lol

[anvil]

Me too!

[Scott NC]

  Maybe it flings itself into the woodstove....

[Frosty]

I'd put a handle on the inside of the stove so the firewood can close the door when it loads itself! 

Is anybody here good at animation? I'm thinking this would make a good animated video.

Picture this, the last 2 pieces of firewood on the stack pick up a saw, march into the woods, fell and buck a tree which proceeds to split and stack itself, while the last two pieces enter the house through the firewood door and climb into the wood stove. 

"The Sawyer's Apprentice?"

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

I said something to my SOL over 4th of July weekend about "stove length" around the fire my granddaughters was making smores over. He had no clue what i meant by stove length. 

My stand is not in ground but it is held down by big pieces of angle iron anchored to the concrete floor of my shop. 

If worried about the log splitting put some steel bands around it. 

[ThomasPowers]

If the log is green the bands will loosen.  A shallow taper on the stump ends can allow you to hammer the bands down tight as the log dries a couple of nails can be used to keep them from working their way back up.

[Charles R. Stevens]

As can adjustable bands. I bend one end over double, drill and then 90. The other end I move back from the end and double the taking the double over and drill. Take that end and put it in a vice and bend the two branches back flat. I do believe 3.14 minus a an inch or two and a bolt.