Hi All, nice to meet you.  I've seen this site many times, figured it's about time I join.  I'm a chemist by trade, started forging about 8 years ago with the intent to make knives, but fell in love with the craft as a whole, and got hooked.  That led to a career change about three years ago, when I sold my half of the environmental laboratory I owned, and went to work for a tool company as a blacksmith.  So now I get to cut, weld, forge, and create with the wrought iron, 52100, aluminum bronze, S7, 01, and other materials we have at work (my main task being reuse and/or resale of the off cuts and flashings from our tool making process.  I get to make san mai, go mai, damascus with 52100/15N20, Cu mai, etc. and  we also just came out with 52100 anvils late last year, 125lb classic style, cast from the leftover flashings from the tool forgings.  (I posted in the anvil list thread). 

Cheers.

Chris, welcome. 

Your work looks very good, and it is exciting to have someone with so much passion AND know-how, plus a fairly robust business to boot. Welcome aboard, there is so much good information here that you will spend hours pouring over old posts. Don't hesitate to reach out to anyone for help - we are all glad to help. 

Patrick

Thanks Patrick, I appreciate your kind words.  It's been a fun learning curve and a great adventure.

Hi, Chris. Cool work, and I enjoyed checking out the website for your business. Out of curiosity, how many anvils do you produce? Since we just lost Holland Anvil, it would be good to know of a reliable replacement.

I’m going to chime in again with an additional question, since anvils are the topic: I’ve been consistently confused as to why high carbon steel is used for anvils. Even the Holland anvils were H13. Is there a reason, either functionally or economically why A36 or 1040 isn’t used for anvils? Seems to me that these would work plenty well, especially if left hardened?

The quick answer is that A36 and 1040 aren't hardenable. You'd get some work hardening of the surface, but eventually the face will dent and mushroom. The softer metal will also lack rebound.

1040 can be hardened, as can 1045, which is what I think I was thinking of. 
I’ve heard that softer metal has less rebound. Have there been any actual experiments to verify this? Maybe I’m steering too far from my comfort zone, but I suspect some of the draw for fancier steels is our fascination with “best”. 

If you've ever had an anvil throw the hammer back at you when you missed your work, you've experimentally verified that hard steel has better rebound.  Whether it makes a difference how hard the anvil is under a piece of hot steel (assuming you hit the hot steel), I'm somewhat doubtful. 

H-13 is generally air hardening.  I'm guessing it may be usable as-cast (or as-cast and tempered) for an anvil, saving the not-insignificant challenge of heat treating a couple of hundred pounds of water-hardening steel. 

hello!