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I bought an anvil today, what do I have? (photos)

Mud

Diamond
Joined
May 20, 2002
Location
South Central PA
Talk about lucky - Just brought this home this evening from about 2 miles away, from a gentleman who retired from farming 20 years ago and kept it in his suburban home garage. Isn't badly beat up, but is quite pitted. Are the rust pits a problem? Do I need to grind the top to use it properly? Is this cast steel, and is it one piece? It rings and rebounds nicely, as far as my inexperienced hand can tell. The 196 lbs marking feels correct, it's close to all I can load by myself. I know next to nothing about anvils and blacksmithing except for what I've picked up here and from some watching of others, but would like to learn a little about forging items hand sized or smaller, is this the right anvil to use for that? Thanks for any info, I've been wanting this, I need a hobby and I'd like to swing a hammer for a while. :D

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That is a really good anvil somthing like that would probably bring about 800 to 1000 bucks it is a cast steel anvil I believe swedish anvils are very sought after any one would be thrilled to have that to bang on I have a 200lbs Buddin and a 275 lbs pedianghaus they both are fantastic.
 
That is a nice anvil, sharp corners, flat surface, looks like very little use. Enjoy, a nice Hickory butt would be nice to set it on. Needs some oil though.
 
If you don't mind, what did you pay for it? I'm nothing close to a blacksmith, but my dad had 2 just like your swedish darling. He still has one of them and is always making some noise on it. The other he gave to a guy as payment for doing some excavating work for him. I'm in a hunt for one just like it. They are handy to have around the shop. Have fun with it and wear your ear plugs!
 
Looks like the anvil has a tool steel top welded on,as is usual.I happen to have a solid tool steel anvil,but most have a welded on top over a softer body. In the old days,the bodys were wrought iron,which is why the tops would cave on over a period of time. The tops weren't wearing: the wrought iron couldn't stand the blows. You do NOT have to put up with ringing. Drill holes on either side of the log. Drive in heavy rings. Chain the top down,tightening the chains by means of eye hooks going down through the log rings. The anvil will only clack. Spare your hearing that way.
 
Mudflap, That is a real find! I collected these some time ago and would have been lucky to find an anvil of that size in that shape. Your anvil is a late model (1929) and looks to be cast steel. PLEASE do not grind on it! The top and edges can be repaired if damaged by using the correct hard facing but this is quite envolved if done correctly Try not to strike the anvil directly with your hammer.
The edges on most anvils you find are badly damaged due to being struck with a hammer or?. Google "Blacksmith" and you will find several blacksmith groups that you can join or just get more information.
If your anvil is in as good of shape as it looks in the pictures it would sell for about $800 out here on the west coast and could go for $1000! They are not making many of these any more! ( you can still buy a new european double horn )
Make a good heavy stand for it and try to keep the vibration down by wrapping a length of chain around the bottom. Learn how to use it correctly! Like most tools there is a correct and a wrong way to use it.
If you get hooked on this you will be spending your free time looking for all the tools that fit in that square hole on the top of the anvil plus hammers, tongs , etc,etc.
Then you will need swage blocks, large and small conical manderels. One day as your shoulders get older you may want a power hammer.
I had to have my shoulder rebuild a few years ago (it has a lot of years on it) and I can no longer use my blacksmith shop for anything but small projects but I still enjoy playing with all this old stuff.
Norm
 
In the photo with the horn pointing left,I see a line about 5/8" down from the top. Isn't that the weld line where the top was welded on? If not,what is it? My solid steel anvil has no such line.
 
I see the same weld line as gwilson, but this is not a defect at all! Just the way good anvils were made back then. Hard steel face on softer iron body. Google is your friend, old anvil research is frustrating but usually succeeds with some patience. Looks a lot like my Hay-Budden, it's a sweet anvil. Mount it on a nice wooden block and enjoy! I mounted mine with 2 u-bolts, ground the ends to points to hammer them into a section of English Oak log.

To reduce the ring just attach one or two very strong rare-earth magnets on the front and back of the base.

Never hit the face directly with a hammer, may chip it.
 
As an alternative to testing an anvil face with a direct hammer strike (which, as mentioned, is considered bad for the anvil and can damage it):

You can take a large steel ball (I use a 1") and drop it from ~12-18" above the anvil. A "live" anvil will bounce the ball up to as much as 90% of it's drop height. I have an old ~120-150lb Fisher which I can drop a steel ball on from 16" and catch without moving my hand.

Looks like a beautiful anvil. The chain is what most of the smiths I know have used for ring, since the magnets will eventually lose their magnetism due to vibration.

Now you need a forge. And a 6-8" stake vise. And a power hammer. And 200 hand hammers. And then you can make some tongs. A helper with a 4-lb sledge for some heavy hammering doesn't hurt either. It never ends.

As for the parts you got for the hardy hole (the square hole), I warn you, don't leave the sharp wedge in the hole when you walk away from the anvil. The smithing shop I worked at called that tool a "murder" because if you took a swing and caught that wedge with your wrist, your smithing days were as good as dead.

P.S. If you want a good, sturdy bowl for hammer bowl shapes, I've found the chopped off bottom of an argon cylinder is great. All precautions apply when desecrating a high-pressure cannister of course.
 
If you do any work for the Government they will require you to to have it calibrated, certified, verified, validated and papers showing where the ore was mined.
Old Bill
 
Nice snag you made there. Sure do wish I owned her! Whatever you do, please do not grind, weld, or do anything else to it. Well-intentioned acts like that can instantly screw up a great anvil. It would be no different than a novice buying a lathe and then working over the ways with a side grinder. Procede slowly until you learn some things. If you want to clean it up, a mild wire brushing will help. I have my anvil mounted to a wild cherry stump. I put a thick piece of carpet between the anvil and stump. This goes a long way towards reducing the noise during use.
 
So I did even better than I thought. I'm really happy to get this, I'm almost as excited about this as I was getting my first CNC. Maybe more - there's no payment book with this, and no repair bills to come! A whole new craft to investigate, and lots of tools to buy. :D

gwilson & Sea Farmer - I see a line there, but the mark on the side says solid steel, and the reading I've done so far tells me Soderfors anvils are solid. What else could that line indicate? It sort of looks like a parting line in a mold, or the line where it was planed off from the casting.

I have a tree trunk of unknown species (poplar?) I cut last spring drying out to use for a base, I hope it's hard enough.

david n - I probably shouldn't admit this after the other posts, but I paid $200. That's what the seller wanted, and I was the first party to get to his house at the end of the day after his ad went in the paper. I made 2 half hearted attempts to haggle, just so he wouldn't feel like his price was too low, then paid him and got him to throw a $10 shop vac in with the deal. I searched on PM briefly to find a previous discussion about anvils, enough to tell me that was OK regardless of the quality or condition. The seller was 90, had this for 30 years or more. Nice guy, still had a real strong handshake, and remembered seeing my photo in the local paper over 10 years ago - I hope I'm doing that well at 90! (wish my memory was that good now...)

Thanks for the tips and comments everyone, keep them coming. I have LOTS to learn!
 
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I've picked up here and from some watching of others, but would like to learn a little about forging items hand sized or smaller, is this the right anvil to use for that? Thanks for any info, I've been wanting this, I need a hobby and I'd like to swing a hammer for a while. :D

I bought an anvil today, what do I have?

Just about the best anvil made on planit earth
you lucky ba****d:D

Please PM me or any experienced smith
before you use it or even think of grinding the surface ......
to remove pits or etc. etc.

And again I recomend
Hit Ebay and get a copy of "Practical Blacksmithing".
An invaluable referance sorce.

m1m
 
I'm not sure what else the line could indicate, possibly a hardened steel face welded onto a softer steel body? That would still be a "solid steel" anvil. But I'm just guessing now :)

I did find this reference on a search of the online portions of the Blacksmith's Gazette. It further refers to a book: "Anvils in America" by Richard Postman. I'm not familiar with the book, but here's the reference:

"Question: Altough I am not new to metal work, I am new to blacksmithing. I grew up working with my father in his home machine shop on the Texas coast. Mostly shrimp boat, and sail boat work. I have recently accuired an anvil and a forge. I found some information about my anvil in one of your articals and was wondering if you could tell me more about it. It has stamped on its side SWEDEN PARAGON 103#. This anvil came out of the Missouri KansasTexas rail road round house (locomotive servicing facility). A fine old retired R.R. gentleman sold-handed it down to me for $20.00. Every body tells me what a steal but it was really more a gift. So what more can you tell me about it? I also got a forge from another fella that I know nothig about. It stands on four legs, the fire pot is about 20" dia., the blower is mounted under the forge, it has written on it’s side NO.150 REG.U.S. PAT. OFF. it has a handle attached to a 8" gear attached to a shaft that turns a wooden pulley that runs a leather strap that turns the blower. The blower has a clinker breaker coming off of it. It has some mounting holes that may have been for a hood of some sort. Also brakets with hole and set screws on two of the legs. The guy that gave it to me got it off a working ranch 20 to 30 yrs. ago. If you can come up with any thing on these two please let me know.

—Mike Menard

Answer: Finally, got around to looking in my book, Anvils in America by Richard Postman. Richard devotes almost three pages to the Paragon anvil, which was made by a Swedish company names Soderfors. The advertisements claim that they are solid forged steel, but Postman feels they are cast steel. He says that it really doesn’t make any difference, because they are excellent anvils. Soderfors has supposedly been making anvils since about 1200 AD; however, he could only find records of the Paragon anvil dating from around 1902 as the oldest and about 1934 as the newest. Soderfors Bruks Akkticbolag was located in Falun, Sweden and exported blacksmith’s , farrier’s, and sawmaker’s anvils to the United States. The number stamped on the anvil would be its actual weight, they didn’t use codes. Paragon Solid Steel Anvils were made in weights from 50 pounds to 450 pounds. They were marked in different ways, come having a crown, some having the image of a raxor, some having the name cast in and some having it stamped on. My copy of the January 1, 1909 Champion blower and Forge co. Catalog lists a No. 150 as an Agricultural Lever and Crank forge. It is pictured on page 13 of the catalog. Says the hearth is 18 inches , fan is 8 inches, weight is 75 pounds. and it sold new for $14.00. The forge was equipped with a small shield to protect the fire from the wind. It is quite possible that a company like Sears was selling Champion Forges under their own name.

This is the best that I can come up with at this time. I’ll publish your letter in Blacksmith’s Gazette and see if anyone else can come up with more information.

—Fred Holder"

Comes from this link: http://www.fholder.com/Blacksmithing/q&a.htm

Sorry for the length of the quote.
 
Pacing the anvil

FWIW, and I don't know for certain that that is anything, a high school teacher (during the school year, construction business on the week ends and summer, but known for his incredible leather and wood work) once said that the log that the anvil sits atop should be at least 3/4 burried, white oak or other rot resistant preferred. So with an 8 foot log, you have a 2 foot stump for the anvil.

Always wanted to find out if this was true or not. Suppose it depends some on how heavy an anvil you have, and how hard you are hammering.
 
Letting a hammer head DROP from your elbow height onto an anvil face is not going to harm either the hammer or the anvil. It is a valid way to feel the anvil rebound. If an anvil can't take that, it is of no use as an anvil.

The only reason to test "ring" was to see if there were any spots not completely welded between the hardened face and the wrought iron body of anvils made by forge-welding the steel face to an iron body. By tapping the face all around directly above the waist, you could listen for dead spots indicating defective welds. The hammer will not rebound or ring as well on these spots. Good anvil manufacturers did not let anvils out of the factory with defects, so this is actually pretty rare unless the anvil is very abused and the face has been tortured so much that the weld broke. The ring and rebound will change quite a bit as you move from the waist to the heel of the anvil where the face is unsupported.

Burying a stump under an anvil is rather dumb. The anvil, like many shop tools, gets moved around occasionally. Locking into one location, especially with a relatively light anvil such as this one, will just cause frustration later, and does nothing substantial to improve anvil performance.

The anvil is just a tool. It isn't an altar.

A wood stump is nice for an anvil base. Use any hardwood. If you don't like it, make another one. Most people mount the anvil on an end grain of a stump, but I've used perfectly serviceable anvils on wooded stands, metal stands, built-up bases from wood scraps, etc. The idea is to secure the anvil, and if possible, increase it's mass. It is no fun using an anvil that wanders around on top of the stump as you work on it. One problem with using a stump one a concrete floor is that over time it tends to round a bit as scale and debris work under it and it gets moved around sanding the edges away. But this takes awhile and you just fix it and get on with things.

That is a very nice anvil and worth considerably more than you paid for it. Its shape is called "London pattern".

There are still several new London pattern anvil suppliers, including Vaughn, JMH, TFS, and even some of the Old World anvils, plus others.

However, many artist/blacksmiths... the typical buyer of a new anvil... tend to favor the two-horn style, often called the German pattern, or European style... neither name is very meaningful.

When you look at the prices of these new anvils, you can see what a bargain you got. Not only is it arguably at least as good (maybe better) than many of these, it looks like it is in new shape.

Most of the surface rust will disappear from the face as soon as you use it. A completely smooth anvil face is not desirable. Having used a polished, shiny faced anvil once, I can tell you it is a bit disconcerting because it doesn't "grip" the work. The very small pits from surface rusting seem to help hold the work from skidding around too easily. That anvil is exactly ready to put on some sort of stand and use as is.
 








 
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