Speaking of anvil porn.....

[Ironbadger]

Doc Nickel over at the Whiteboard did a rebuild on a beat up anvil he acquired a while back.

The story and step by step photos are here.http://www.docsmachine.com/blacksmith/

Docs not really into the entire historical recreation thing- as he is primarily a machinist and airsmith.

However, I thought it was worth pointing out for the pretty.

-Badger-

[The Iron Dwarf]

I have just rehomed an abused anvil, will be restoring it later when it arrives, will be a while as I am too mean to pay for all the fuel to drive right to the south west tip of this country to collect it so in the summer a friend from there is coming here and he will bring it


have you ever seen one so bad?

[Ironbadger]

I admit, I have not seen one quite this beat up.

The one I had from a yard sale 20 years ago had a cracked horn- but was otherwise not that badly damaged.
(My current anvil is a length of railroad iron...I should get a real one.)



I'll be interested in seeing the rebuild when you begin, Iron Dwarf.

-Badger-

[The Iron Dwarf]

I will try to document it here,
it will be summer before I even get it
and the reason for restoring this one is I think it is quite old even by anvil terms

am collecting a few now
have a 100lb peter wright ( forged )
a 15lb record ( modern cast iron rubbish )
a 10lb forged one
and 2 of my home made anvils that look like this

[Laurie Wise]

All three of Kirby's anvils are over a hundred years old and are 250lb "Right Anvils". All needed resurfacing from decades of hammering/misuse before he got them. He used Stoody (sp?) Twin coat rod to re face/surface these with. (although people will tell you Stoody does not make this rod....they did, he says)

One belonged to a local pioneer (passed away in the 60s) whose family came to Ehrenberg AZ in a covered wagon with it. He gave it to Kirby to use. Our son uses this one when forging.

Another anvil belonged to an old Stock Inspector (animal) who got it from the Rail Road ages ago. This is the one you see Kirby using in our website photos.

The third was given to Kirby by a very good friend who since passed away as well.

[Maeryk]

I have just rehomed an abused anvil, will be restoring it later when it arrives, will be a while as I am too mean to pay for all the fuel to drive right to the south west tip of this country to collect it so in the summer a friend from there is coming here and he will bring it


have you ever seen one so bad?

Yes, I have. We had _four_ at one point. A standard shoeing anvil, a double horn, one that was built into a small shoeing forge (electric, blower/bowl/etc with a small anvil on the back with a vice built into it) and one beat up that bad. And a full rack of tongs/hammers.

Dad lost all of em. *sigh*

[Thomas Powers]

I once traded a 125# Peter Wright, a leg vise screw& screwbox and US$100 for a 400+ pound Trenton that had a lovely flat face interspersed with air arc gouging #$%^&*$%^&!

Funny thing, it was from a copper mine in AZ, I did the deal in OH and then ended up taking it out to NM when I moved... Fellow who had it wasn't smithing much but still wanted an anvil around, just one that wasn't so blasted hard to move with. (I had found the PW whilst doing a test drive of a car we ended up buying)

Anyway I finally took it to an anvil repair workshop put on by the ABANA affiliate out there and using Rob Gunter's method got it back to "*SHINY*" All in all I'm probably up to nearly 75 cents a pound for it...

Thomas (it's my smaller anvil for the shop and will be the primary in the armour shop when the 515# Fisher moves into the new smithy!)