September 19, 2025Sep 19 I have a wrought iron anvil with a welded steel face, so it's naturally very loud. Fortunately, I have taken most of the ring out of it with chains wrapped around, a magnet each end, bolting the feet to a large wooden stand, and a 10mm rubber matting between the anvil and the stand. A meter outside my workshop, you can really hear very little, unless a do some more robust hammering. You can't hear the higher frequency ringing, but the deeper thud, transferring into the concrete slab itself. Has anyone experimented with rubber under the anvil stand itself? Or even industrial rubber feet underneath? My wooden stand is very wide/ set out, so there is no risk of it toppling over. Of course, yesterday, I disassembled the engine crane! Anyway, not a big deal, but wondered if anyone had some thoughts on this Thank you!
September 20, 2025Sep 20 Have you ever looked at xylophone bars, piano wires, etc? Everything made to ring is hung on something you'd think would absorb vibration but they don't they allow the note to ring true. I have a Soderfors which are famous for dangerously loud ring, I tried a number of things to quieten it down, inset it in a spruce block and let the block shrink around the anvil foot and it would still make my ears ring wearing ear plugs and muffs. I put 1/4" of fire clay between anvil and block which helped but not enough to keep my ears from ringing wearing double ppe. I tried rubber, leather and a number of other things and I was still cringing with a missed blow. I realized the anvil had a very loud prolonged ring because the steel resonates and it dawned on my the fastest way to get a bell to stop ringing is touch it with a piece of steel, a nail, piece of wire. Sooooo I made a steel tripod with 2x2" angle iron flange up that fit the anvil's foot snugly, the legs are 2" x 3" rectangular tubing which I had from a previous project. two of the legs are slightly shorter than the one under the tail and it has two foot pads so I can get under one end with my hand truck and move it around without dropping it. On a wood block with any of my previous attempts just a tap anywhere on the face let alone the horn or tail made my ears ring and caused spectators at demos wince and leave before long. Mounted steel anvil on a steel stand a tap on horn or heal is still loud but it's no longer even very loud. Instead of TINGGGGGGG! it says tink or clank. I still hearing protection of course but I can listen to music or an audio book while I work. The first pic is my Trenton in it's stand, the second pic is a detail shot of how the hammer racks wedge the anvil into the stand tightly enough to lift both into my pickup with my engine lift, AKA cherry picker. Yeah, this stand worked so well under my Soderfors I built one for the Trenton, another notoriously loud anvil. Frosty The Lucky.
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