WELCOME to the anvilfire Guru's Den - V. 3.3

THIS is a forum for questions and answers about blacksmithing and general metalworking. Ask the Guru any reasonable question and he or one of his helpers will answer your question, find someone that can, OR research the question for you. This is an archive of posts from June 8 - 15, 2007 on the Guru's Den

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Just another question on power hammer/treadle. How would a hydraulic press fit in? I realise it may not be as versatile, but it seems like a quieter option compared to the JYH - especially in the suburbs. Obviously cost of hydraulics would increase costs somewhat.    andrew - Thursday, 06/07/07 22:06:26 EDT Have you ever heard a hydraulic power supply running? Kind of like a lower note hi-decibel skill saw running constantly. GNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. . . . Much noisier than the thunk thunk thunk of a small power hammer and carries quite far. Hydraulics necessary to do reasonable work is also quite expensive compared to other machines. About the only quiet forging machine is a small roller mill like the McDonald Mill (see our reviews page). They make less noise than the roaring of a forge fire and much less than a gas forge.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 00:48:32 EDT What makes a quiet forging machine is cast iron. While fabricated steel machines are probably the future good solid cast iron machines are much quieter. However, it takes thick solid mass to achieve lower noise. Newer machines that have been lightened considerably have hollow spaces that resonate. The ultimate in quiet is a new Ingersol Rand electric rotary compressor. You can stand right next to one and not hear hardly a hum from the compressor. Power an old solid steam hammer with one of these and it is scary quiet. A friend has several large old hammers and the compressor pumps up a huge 1,000 gallon air receiver. When the compressor stops and you run the hammer it is only the hardest blows that are significantly noisy. As long as you keep hot steel between the dies it is a gentle thud thud thud and the deep breathing sounds of the exhaust. The feel of the ground vibrating surprises you when there is so little noise to create it. Then there is the rotary screw press (a powered fly press). These are also very quiet but they are quite rare. If you want quiet forging power with little or no vibration this is the way to go.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 01:06:32 EDT Well, I live just near Chapel Hill, NC (mid-state), and as such there seems to be a pretty healthy community of anvil using folks about 3 hours west. Anyone have anything to say about euroanvils? -Drew    Drew - Friday, 06/08/07 06:47:31 EDT Brings up one other question. Starting out, first real nice anvil purchase... I know it's always said to buy the heaviest, nicest anvil you can afford... but which to preference? The same money (about the upper end of my budget) could get a 120 lb Nimba OR a 286 lb euroanvil on my door step. Better to buy a fine tool and bolt it down to something immobile, or to go for sheer mass and sacrifice some finish and quality? Seems like the Nimba would hold its value better if I wanted to sell it, and it would be nice to have a portable anvil even if down the road I have a 500 lb. monster. For now I don't have a permanent shop, so I need to be able to move it with another person. What would be better? Anvils don't seem like a good place to scrimp, but money is always an issue and I wonder where it's best to put it if you can't just buy a Gladiator right to start with. -Drew    drew - Friday, 06/08/07 09:55:27 EDT So no on the slate, and maybe on the sandstone (I guess this is the same as what happens to concrete). Would building a wood fire with and letting it burn down to mostly coals be hot enough to test the rock? Speaking of which, how hot would you say you could get a wood fire to be? I think I have heard the number of about 1600 degrees F, but I dont recall the source. It also seems like I remember reading in Bealer's book that some smiths in North Carolina(?) used chunks of green chestnut in their forge rather than using charcoal or coal.    - Hollon - Friday, 06/08/07 10:13:01 EDT Drew, You are surrounded by smiths of various sorts. The Power Hammer School is in Mooresville and the Foothill smiths meet there once a month. The BigBLU is manufactured at Oakhill Ironworks up in Morganton, I am up in Boonville near Mt.Airy, Dave-B is over in N.Wilksboro, ptpiddler is near Charlotte. . . . Those are just the ones I can remember where they live. Euroanvils is a good inexpensive anvil. Per pound it is the best you can get for the money. Folks often pay as much or more for cast iron junkers in ebay. They are a little soft but some of this is due to their size (large anvils do not harden as well NOR should be as hard a small anvils). Sometimes their castings are rougher than they should be. But you get what you pay for. If you want better there are some very nice anvils for considerably more money.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 10:19:46 EDT Wood Fire Temperatures: As wood burns it converts from wood to charcoal. A charcoal fire can run 3,000°F (1648°C). The story IS, that the fellow that invented the Fisher-Norris anvil welding process found a piece of cast iron melted and welded to a piece of steel after a building fire. The problem with burning wood is that much of the non-carbon material gases off and does not burn 100%. Where it DOES burn is high above the fuel bed. So you have an overall cooling effect that requires heat to produces gases and water vapor that together largely make up smoke. The wetter the wood the cooler the fire. Then certain woods have more products that gas off than others. The gassing off process makes charcoal. So, theoretically you can burn wood and get a very high temperature fire. The problem is that the fire is cooling itself AND producing copious smoke. Where very high temperatures occur in building fires and bonfires is when about 1/3 to 1/2 the fuel has been burnt converting the rest to charcoal. THEN things get very hot and there is much less smoke. However, anyone that has been at bonfires or campfires can tell you that there is almost always smoke until very near the end. If there is smoke then the fire is not at 100% efficiency. Making charcoal (as a separate process) throughly cooks all the volatiles and things that contribute to making smoke and lowering the fire temperature. Doing it as a controlled process retains most of the high energy carbon. SO when you burn good charcoal you get a clean high temperature heat.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 10:37:06 EDT Man, you must have all had fantastic scrap yards back in the day. I'll be paying 25 cents per pound after adding in cutting costs and I think i'm getting a hell of a deal, but I still expect to spend around 600$ in parts for each a treadle hammer and a power hammer (most likely building a helve / rusty style hammer, as it's a simpler design , though since i'm just buying anvil posts right now, i could change my mind later) All this talk of 50 and 100$ junk yard power hammers has me sighing to myself >_<    jmercier - Friday, 06/08/07 11:04:16 EDT Hello, I'm a francophone from Montréal, Canada, so excuse me for my english. I am also an occupationnal therapist. One of my client is a blacksmith, independant worker in a small shop. He is doing manufacture custom made iron work. He's having a tendinitis at his right elbow. I'm triyng to find equipment for him to reduce risk factor for injuries. So, I'm looking to find a power hammer and a ram scroll bender hydraulic, pneumatic or electric. I have difficulties to find a good model and also a distributor. Can you help me? Do you know model of power hammer and bender that you would recommand and where to find them? Thank you very much for your time. Véronique Landry    Véronique Landry - Friday, 06/08/07 11:31:51 EDT Scrap WAS much cheaper 20 years ago. In fact you couldn't hardly sell it. So what happened is a LOT got given away. The huge 2" thick base under the EC-JYH was a screwed up part from our shop. Someone had flame cut heavy chamfers on the wrong side of the plate. I got it for free. The two 4" thick 12" diameter rounds that made up the anvil were also freeby drops. You GOTTA be in the right place at the right time. But now I don't get these deals any longer so the steel is more dear. It is not all that easy. I have several 10' lengths of over 6 and 7 inchs diameter steel shafting waiting to be converted to hammer anvils. I paid a dealer about $800 for it and HE bought it from another dealer. However, the guy *I* bought if from (Chuck King of Petersburg, VA) did all the leg work AND delivered the steel to me. I have a piece of 140# RR-rail about 10 feet long as well. I bought it OR traded it from a friend. I also have a number of short lengths of lighter rail that I bought from a scrap outfit that grinds up RR-rail to make Wheelabrator abrasive from. The price was pretty cheap but I had to drive 50 miles and the stuff was covered with black greasy dirt. Probably came out of a coal mine or yard. My best hit was back in the 70's. A bunch of buildings had been torn down and the lots cleaned up with the exception of the pile of steel scrap. This consisted of everything from some 24"x75# I beam down to 2" angle. The stuff sat there a LONG time. When I asked about it I was told it had been given away TWICE. I told the man if you want it gone, it will be gone by Monday, DON'T give it away again! Three of us with two pickup trucks hauled the entire 5 to 8 tons away in a weekend. We had to torch up a lot of it into pieces we could handle and fit in our trucks. Beams that took 3 of us to pick up one end, I had to unload alone by tying to a tree and taking off FAST. . . The key was I ASKED. But I also had a full size torch outfit AND a HD pickup truck. I am STILL making things with material from that one "hit" and I only got half. TODAY, Just the gasoline to haul all that steel away would cost $200 for the two trucks for the weekend. Add $65 for the oxy-acetylene and $25 for the lunch I bought. That still only adds up to about 2.5 cents a pound not including labor.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 11:48:03 EDT Machinery: Veronique Landry, Dealers for this equipment are pretty sparse so you are probably going to need to buy from U.S. dealers. Our advertisers that sell Power Hammers are: Anyang (see our power hammer page for distributors). Big BLU Hammers Centaur Forge Striker Tool Company Phoenix Hammers Centaur Forge sells Hossfeld benders. These are a manual bender but that make an add-on hydraulic system. For more sophisticated (and more expensive) benders you will need to check with NOMMA.org and Fabricator Magazine. Among the machines sold by their advertisers is a number of universal high production machines such as the German made Hebo.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 11:57:00 EDT What scrap yard?----Lets see I was able to buy the anvil stock at scrap rate the yard buys at through a friend who's job would let him buy at the same rate as the scrapyard. I bought 4 pieces and sold two of them for twice as much as I had paid and so had "free" metal. I gave away one of them to a friend. Never can remember if they were 4140 or 4349 though... The base plate was a piece of 1" thick steel about 30x48" that was thrown on top of a bunch of welding class scrap at the tech auction. I bought it off the fellow who won the bid for $40 as he didn't want to mess with lifting it into his truck. The heavy I beam pieces for the back upright were free, had been used as weights for farm implements and when a friend cleaned up an old farmyard he dumped them over at my place. A lot of steel is around as little bits may cost more in labour to take to recycling than you get for it for a business. It's 100 miles to a scrapyard from where I live so we tend to recycle everything ourselves... *ALWAYS* *ASK* and be ready to jump on a find. Be safe, having a hard hat, steel toed boots and leather gloves, can go a lot towards making someone think that they are not risking much letting you help clean a site. If someone else is cleaning a site a friendly word and a cold sixpack may get you the piece you want/need! And finally *CONSTANT VIGILANCE* it's out there; you just need to keep your eyes and ears open for it---and not be in a hurry... Thomas    Thomas P - Friday, 06/08/07 13:35:15 EDT Power scroll benders- The most basic, and cheapest ones available are the RAM, sold thru www.classicirononline.com Then, you step up to the german and other european models. These would include the hybrid 3 roll models from www.eaglebendingmachines.com and the dedicated scroll benders from the germans www.usahebo.com www.glaser.de There is now a chinese company that is copying the germans, and they are starting to get some limited US distribution. I believe that a miami company, www.yacmachinery.com will be importing the chinese machines, although they are not shown on the website yet. They did take a big ad out in this months Nomma magazine, showing a full range of chinese machines.    - Ries - Friday, 06/08/07 13:41:30 EDT *CONSTANT VIGILANCE* and Carry-Iron Thomas says, Constant Vigilance . . But also follow up on leads and take advantage of the moment. I am not a follower of the following but HAVE done it with Paw-Paw when he was alive. He had an eagle eye for what he called "carry-iron" (carrion) on the highway. He would stop anywhere, city streets, the Interstate, and pick up stuff that had fallen off vehicles. On a single trip from North Carolina to Georgia (about 700 miles) we picked up TWO, TWO! brand new heavy truck brake drums in different states AND a perfectly good 5 gallon insulated water container WITH lid. He would STOP and backup in the highway, turn around, park in the road. . . All very dangerous things and I am NOT recommending them. But Paw-Paw brought back lots of stuff from the road side. I read another article from someone that spent a lot of time on the road and literally brought back tons of iron over a period of years. Pieces of chain and rigging were common along the roads he traveled. In my collection I have a hook , swivel and 5 foot length of chain that I found in the road. I opened the door of my low riding sports car and just scooped it up without getting out. Iron is not the only element on the roads. I picked up two large contractor road signs from the landfill where they apparently had been in the bottom of the truck when the contractor dumped a load of debris. Four foot square 1/8" thick aluminium plate! And last year I ran over a 12 foot section of an extension ladder in the Interstate. It had rotated at an angle as the car in front of me clipped a corner of it and I could do nothing except run over it. The semi behind me also ran over it flipping it into the air about 30 feet. I did not see more. . . But it WOULD have been a good section of aluminum ladder. I made a U-turn to go back and pick up a very nice pair of commercial wheel chocks on a rope a few years ago. The car behind me got there first. . . And as Thomas also noted, you want to be the direct buyer, NOT the guy that buys AFTER the scrap yard has it.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 14:29:43 EDT Drew I have a Nimba. Finish and quality can't be beat. Worth the money.    - Burnt Forge - Friday, 06/08/07 14:37:47 EDT Veronique, Check out www.soluquip.com they are in P.Q. and would be closer to you. (sorry Jock, I have mentioned advertising on anvilfire to them and got a polite pfo letter in return saying they were busy enough without advertising)    JimG - Friday, 06/08/07 14:57:09 EDT Jim, Thanks for the note. On the other hand I have gotten that response for folks that end up advertising in other places. . . "P.Q." We just changed that to QC on the Kaynes cart. I told them that was the normal abbreviation in French and everyone understood it, especially in Canada! I'm glad I was not too wrong.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 15:34:48 EDT Went to my steel dealer/scrap yard earlier this week. In one hopper they had four aluminum beer kegs. Three about 30" tall and one about 24" tall. $1.00 pound, but they do make great quench tubs. Passed them by though as I didn't need one myself and I couldn't justify buying a couple for possible resale on eBay. At scrapyards it is pretty well targets of opportunity as the three in my area I know of ship it out about as fast as it comes in. On Fisher & Norris, way I heard story is foundries had tried making steel plate topped cast iron anvils prior to F&N; however, the bond was very inconsistent. One time it would bond fine, next plate would pop off. Mark Fisher must have known about this problem and when he saw the molten cast iron bonded to the steel beam he must have figured out the problem was they weren't getting the top plate up to essentially forge welding temperature before they poured the cast iron into the mold. Way out of my area here so I am speculating what they did was to bring a plate up to forge welding temperature, place it down on something, set a two-part mold over it, throw in a shovel full of flux and then poured in the cast iron. I suspect process might have taken 30-seconds, if that with an experienced crew. I would be interested in knowing the total number of anvils produced by F&N and Peter Wright. Both may have have sold more anvils in the U.S. then all other competitors combined (besides each other).    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Friday, 06/08/07 16:18:13 EDT Burnt Forge... what size Nimba are you using? I hear that their design gives a better rebound per pound, kinda like a post anvil. I wonder though if the 120 is still gonna be too small for what I do... mostly tool-smithing and pretty light blacksmithing. Also, I have a 6" diameter, 5 foot long mild steel post set into the ground I've been using for heavy stock squashing, so whatever anvil I use will never be seeing a sledge or a hammer bigger than four pounds. If that little titan is gonna be big enough I may do it, but otherwise I'm probably thinking of getting a 175 lb. euro for now... later when it's time to get a permanent shop anvil I'll be thinking hard about nimbas. But then... they last forever... such a hard thing to decide. Maybe the money spent on a euro will be wasted if I decide I HAVE to have a centurion later... I'm prone to silliness like that. If you all had to do it over again, would you buy the last anvil you'd want first?    drew - Friday, 06/08/07 16:33:06 EDT New Anvils, Used Anvils. Most are a fair investment and you can get most of your money out of a used new anvil if you try. However, the longer you keep it the greater the likelihood of getting or NOT getting your investment out. Anvil prices like steel have been climbing in recent years so used anvils sell for their original price because new is much higher. . . It partly depends on if you have improved it or put wear and tear on it. I've had new anvils that we worth more when they left than when they arrived because they had finished horns and edges, hardy holes radiused, burrs removed and a nice repaint after the dressing. A day's labor can add value to the tool. However, one with significant signs of wear and tear is going to sell at used prices. Either anvil you are discussing will do the job. Anything over 100 pounds is not bad. The difference is how heavy of work you are doing and how much. Those that work at the anvil for long days need every advantage they can get to reduce fatigue and stress.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 17:16:38 EDT Anvil Life: Actually anvils DO NOT last forever and they CAN BE worn out. When used in heavy service where several smiths work in the same shop and striking is often done on a regular basis and anvils see a LOT of wear from missed blows. In fact this is the primary way most old anvils with heavily chipped edges got that way. But they also become generally dented all over in some cases. Heavy blows also causes sagging in old wrought anvils including sagging horns. If you look at good old wrought anvils they started life with the tip of the horn about the same height as the face. This was a feature of English anvils to compensate for future sagging of the horn. After much use the horn would be straight out from the anvil and still look in good condition. After that the horn starts to look droopy. While it has no effect on usability it has the same visual effect of an aging woman's breasts. Anvils also wear from abrasion. Anvils used for general purpose usually develop a slight depression in the center of the face that is lower than the surrounding edges. This is more from wear due to scale than sag. On anvils used for specialty production work such as shoeing or making hardware it is not unusual to see shallow grooves worn in the face of an anvil. I've seen numerous anvils with grooves worn in the horn, face and heel depending on what the smith did primarily. It is rare but anvils also break. This was common when wrought anvils had the horn and heel welded to a blocky body. It also occurs when castings have serious flaws or inclusions. THEN there is outright abuse. Anvils used for a flame cutting table often get notched and anvils used for a welding bench often get arc burned. Anvils also get used for cold chisel cutting chain and bar resulting in hundreds of chisel cuts. Combine all these together and the results can be a pretty sad worn out anvil, and there are MANY in this condition. They are still usable, but have long passed their prime.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 17:48:35 EDT I saw a bridge anvil at the last Swaba meeting that had been used as an arc welding table---the *entire* face was built up weld bloblets. It's new owner knocked them down a bit and plans to use it for texturing hot steel. Thomas    Thomas P - Friday, 06/08/07 17:57:08 EDT Vicopper, To quote the smartest man I ever met, " Son, you will make mistakes in life, and in building machines. If you make a mistake, go back and make it as right as you can. And ALWAYS strive to make new and original mistakes" He told me that when I started building tools, fixtures and machines for the production shops at the valve shop, about 1984. Sadly, he only lived another two years. But I have taken that quote to heart and have tried to remember that every time I start to design. I have never built two machine that were identical. I have had designs that were built, prototyped, modified and then set to be produced for sale. Kinda was hard to not want to improve every one that was shipped. I have only had one machine that was built in large quantity, the ice blocker, and they are still building them after 15+ years. The solid ice beer mug maker may still be in limited production but I am not sure. I almost got a patent on that one, and was really wanting the wall plaque from the patent on the "ultimate frosty mug" :)    ptree - Friday, 06/08/07 18:19:41 EDT Scrap yard? Never have bought much from a yard. I have been blessed(cursed?) to have spent my life working in large factories. The stuff that is scrapped is unbelievable. At VOGT, we were scrapping a million# a month when I started. Great selection, and we could buy anything not SS or exotic for $0.06/#. Including machines! I know cause I did. At the axle shop, a more limited selection but plenty of volume. The anvil for my JYH is an enertia bar from a vibratory feeder. it was 4" x 4" by 8'. cut in half and welded up the seam made a good start. The base plate from the feeder was a 1" x 6"x12'. scabbed to three sides made a nicer anvil. The center column was a drop of 6" x 6" x 1/4" square tube. The base plate some VERY heavy channel, legs up, that was a scrap from a boiler side frame. i filled the column with scrap steel shot. The only noise my hammer makes is the noise as the dies hit the iron. The shot makes the frame a 650# noise deadener. Did I mention that all that scrap was free for the hauling? By the time I needed the stuff, scrap was so slow, that they gave it to me to not have to break it up to put it into the scrap hopper. As Thomasp and the Guru note scrap is out there, and if you ask nicely, with a small gift to hand, be it a cold one, a small knife(really popular) or something else, be polite. be ready to take it then and do NOT make a mess. That way the next time you come not only will they not chace you off, the may have saved you goodies! I got all the siding and roofing for my shop by that exact method.    ptree - Friday, 06/08/07 18:29:48 EDT thanks for the info idont plan on buying an oxen though theres lots of leather shops around as for the brick after 2 days of study i think i should just buy them at first (allready ordered) the diging a whole idea is apealing the loss of limbs and body parts is not the books you talk about are in my folder if i can get them through the BookPlace i will but i never buy anything with a credit card but gas and food its safer that way thank again    - elbert - Friday, 06/08/07 20:51:03 EDT Doint it from the beginning: Elbert, There are quit a few small operations that make brick by hand then fire them with wood. It is an art and the smallest number made is huge because the "furnace" is built from the bricks being fired. The large number also reduces the per-brick fuel cost. There are back to the landers as well as a few good ol' country folk that raise their own food, slaughter their own cattle, make hams, bacon, sausage, jerky AND tan their own leather. A full size bellows requires one ox hide or two normal cow hides. In the iron business there is currently a resurgence in making iron and steel in small quantities from the ore using small charcoal furnaces. This too is an art and it helps to have four or five friends that are as crazy as you are to help operate the furnace for the long 12 to 24 hour smelt. Much of this is research finding out about technical methods that have been lost as recently as 150 years ago. But it also requires mining your own ore, crushing it and roasting it before you start. . . In wood working there are many (including myself) who have cut trees, split out boards with a froe, hand dressed the lumber, let it dry, dressed it again with hand tools and made things of it. There is also a school of working green wood which I have also practiced many years ago. There are folks that hand make paper, print with old fashioned manual letter presses and do book binding starting with raw materials. Most of these folks DO have enough sense to buy leather from professionals. It is an art form and there is a market for such labor intensive books. I do book binding for myself but on a less obsessive level. Quite a few folks in blacksmithing and on this forum are these kind of "renaissance" people that are multi-talented, well educated and obsessive about doing many things the hard way from scratch, just for the satisfaction of doing so. So when YOU say YOU want do it all from the beginning without modern technology WE take your question seriously. Many of these crafts that SEEM very simple and were done by primitive peoples require a surprising amount of knowledge. Primitive peoples MAY have had a low level of technology but they were NOT dumb. They were just as intelligent as humans have ever been. TRY knapping flint using bone tools, OR even finding and identifying GOOD flint. Even stone age man had technology that required education and practice. The EASIEST cheapest way of gaining much of this knowledge is to read a book. Today you are lucky, there are good detail books on almost ALL the crafts mentioned above and more. This was not always so. See our book review page for many of the ones on blacksmithing. Your most important tool is the one between your ears.    - guru - Friday, 06/08/07 23:43:30 EDT Wasn't there a situation a while back where a woman wrote in saying she'd bought a slew of I hesitate to name the brand anvils because am unsure I recall correctly for her school and they ALL arrived badly flawed. Did she ever get that worked out? Anybody recall the brand? Also, a friend got a medium sized NIMBA several years ago, uses it hard daily, and loves it. Just loves it.    Miles Undercut - Friday, 06/08/07 23:15:59 EDT Miles, Those were Euroanvils purchased in Europe from the agent in Europe that handles the manufacturing of the anvils in the Czech Republic. He sold bad anvils (one literally fell in two) and then would not stand behind them. I do not know the outcome. John Elliot (the current owner of Euroanvil in the U.S.) and the previous owner (Steve Finestien) both had numerous problems with their manufacture and the Czech agent. However, when they recieved bad product they either returned to the factory in the Czech Republic (at their cost) OR sold the rejects AS rejects at considerably reduced prices. Both Steve and John have stood behind the anvils they sell. If there are problems they have taken care of it. However, neither has had any control of their Czech agent. SO, like many products it makes a huge difference who you buy from. If you buy a "Rolex" watch from a street corner vender for $25 do you expect a REAL Rolex (which start at about $10,000) AND a guarantee? There are hundreds of Euroanvils in use in commercial shops in the US where they see as hard a use as any. They are not the best. But they are very good for the money.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 00:05:46 EDT I have a Nimba Gladiator that I absolutely love. It is a near-perfect Italian-inifluenced design by the late Russell Jacqua and the quality and finish is magnificent. The 450# mass, most of which is centered under the face, is tremendously effective as a forging tool, far more so than any other anvil I've used. I've also used Josh Smith's 500# Euroanvil, and it is a very decent forging tool, though not the quality of the Nimba. In fact, it was using Josh's big euroanvil that conovinced me of the value of a really heavy anvil. The price difference between the Euroanvil and the Nimba would have led me to get the Euroanvil, had I not lucked into a deal on my Gladiator that allowed me to get it for about the cost of a Euroanvil. I couldn't pass that up, and I love the Nimba.    vicopper - Saturday, 06/09/07 07:41:56 EDT Well, I hope it was apparent that when I say they last forever I mean only comparatively. I'm trying to figure what the appropriate way to think of their purchase is. Clothes, for example. They wear out quick, don't re-sell for much... so money saved at a thrift store is money earned and smart. On the other hand, anvils seem to be pretty well lifetime investments if you're good to them... even saying that is probably to under-estimate their longevity. So in that context, they're maybe a bit more like a musical instrument or a nice pair of boots... the marginal difference in cost (which is big anyway) isn't worth the difference in getting what you want and making do for YEARS. Or maybe I'm thinking of this wrong. I don't truly know. It's an interesting test case for a larger understanding of how you think of material, your time, money, and most importantly VALUE. What's worth it?    drew - Saturday, 06/09/07 08:33:28 EDT Oh, and I really appreciate everyone's input. Seriously.    drew - Saturday, 06/09/07 08:35:21 EDT Anvils: Mass Folks never appreciate the mass of a big anvil until they actually work on one. MY friend Josh Greenwood had a big 350 pound heavy pattern Hay-Budden that he used much of his career and dearly loved. But later he found a beautiful 450 pound German double horn anvil in Germany and brought it home. He says he can feel the difference at the end of the day after working on that anvil. He says that you do not notice blow per blow but that at the end of the day he is not as tired as he normally would be. Although it is a pain to move I would not give up my 300# Kohlswa. If I ever have a heavier anvil it will be one of my own design. I made detailed dimensioned CAD drawings of both of Josh's anvils. The anvilfire logo is from the drawing of Josh's Hay-Budden. And the Euroanvil was influenced by the drawing of Josh's German anvil that I sent the Steve Finestien and a rasterized version is posted with our German anvil article. A photo I took of my Kohlswa is on the Kohlswa.com page. The poorly copied Czech made "Austrian" pattern anvil is based on those in book by Otto Schmirler, Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds. Thus the world goes round and round. . .    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 08:46:02 EDT Drew, You are right that you can live with what you purchase in an anvil for a lifetime. Many anvils have outlived their original owners by a half dozen generations or more. Fine quality tools have intrinsic value that many do not appreciate. The best often do not work that much better but they LOOK much better, the quality of workmanship is better and in the end will be worth much more generations from now. Look at the cheap cast iron anvils folks waste their money on. They wear out quickly and they have almost ZERO value as a used tool. They start ugly and end ugly. Millions have been made but they are VERY VERY rare on the used market. . because they are junk that has been scraped. Many anvils sold in the early 19th through early 20th century are selling for more today adjusted for inflation than they sold for new. Some of this is due to collectors in the marketplace, but it is also due to the appreciation of fine made tools that will never be made this well again. On the other hand you do not have to live with your first anvil forever. It is not like buying a house and much less expensive than a car. You can always trade up at a later date.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 08:57:29 EDT Thinking re: purchases-- if you want it and can afford it, grab it on the spot, because when you go back for it, it may well not be there any more. Companies do not stay in business forever,especially in some line of trade as nutty as making anvils and swage blocks, and even if they do, they may discontinue the product you want. Buy the absolute best tools you can afford. Do not lend them. To anybody. Not even blood kin. Do not let your brother-in-law do concrete work for you. Keep a positive mental attitude. Etc., etc., zzzzzzz.....    Miles Undercut - Saturday, 06/09/07 09:42:38 EDT Actually, I paid more for the Nimba than I did for my wife's car. And the NImba has only MADE me money, while that car has COST me lots more than I paid for it. There is value and there is real value. A first-class anvil is real value, and doesn't have a 30% depreciation the minute you buy it, like a car does. Nor will it be obsolete before you buy it, the way a new computer would. Hard to find a better value in a tool than a good anvil. Just keep the welding and gas-cutting operations out of reach of the anvil, and it will stay in fine shape. The number of smiths who "trade up" on anvils is pretty low, I'd imagine. Most of the smiths I know who started with a small (but decent) anvil, still keep it when they get the bigger one. The excuses for doing so are legion; I need a travel anvil, demo anvil, detail anvil, taller anvil, shorter anvil, thinner horn, smaller hardy hole, etc. The reality is probably more on the order of, "I can't bear to part with an anvil, even if it sits under the bench and collects dust." (GRIN)    vicopper - Saturday, 06/09/07 09:42:50 EDT Hello! I like it resurce! Welcome to my portal about russian kovka - http://yugsp.ru    - User - Saturday, 06/09/07 10:04:02 EDT On anvils, my philosophy is one size (or whatever) doesn't fit all. It really depends on what the intended use will be. For someone just starting out, and blacksmithing will never be more than a part-time hobby, the Russian imports aren't that bad. They are cheap and readily available. However, I certainly agree with Jock with some mold redesign they would be much better. If you intend to make money from forging then certainly a large and high quality anvil is justified. Most will fall somewhere in between those. For what do I am extremely happy with my 160-lb Fisher.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Saturday, 06/09/07 10:14:15 EDT Guru (and company), I am interested in the heat treatment process, and specifically, in methods for the prevention of decarburization, especially during the annealing process. Everyone talks about it, and evidently understands it, but many aspects of it seem to be taken for granted. For example: does carbon steel LOOK different (to the naked eye) before and after it has been decarbed? What is the temperature threshold for decarb? Is it constant with all steels? How quickly (and voluminously) does carbon migrate out of steel at a given temperature? (Some seem to think it a matter of little consequence, while others believe a careless match will strip all carbon out of your steel, plus all metal objects in the surrounding area) By what means can carbon be cajoled into remaining friends with steel despite increasing temperatures? Does carbon prefer to be friends with some steels more than others? (I'm working with 5160) Can recommended annealing temperatures be fudged towards the low side and still effect the same result? Can they in fact be ignored, and the steel softened sufficiently to be workable using temperatures below the decarb threshold? (I'm clearly not forging here, so I need the steel soft enough to work cold before the final heat-treatment) In short, how can this metallurgical hobgoblin be kept to a minimum? I have access to a good kiln with temp controls, but (alas) it has no magically inert atmosphere to go with it. I have heard of wrapping with SS foil, and the use of isolating paints. But the SS stuff is difficult to find, and expensive besides, and I don't even know what an isolating paint is. I've heard of ceramic-based paints that are used in very high temperature environments like ovens and exhaust manifolds. Would something like this work? I know this is rather removed from forging questions, but reckoned you would either know, or be able to point me in the right direction. This all started as a simple cold-working project but has unfortunately mutated into a full-blown research topic. Thank much.    Prof Newbie - Saturday, 06/09/07 10:59:56 EDT I'm a smith, not a metallurgist. I don't think you have a hobgoblin problem. In normal practice, decarburization is a thin surface phenomenon measured in the thousanths of an inch. You cannot fudge on the annealing temperature. You must reach the transformation (critical) range. For annealing, 5160 takes 1450 - 1500ºF, a good, cherry red incandescent color and very slow cooling. It can also be normalized by air cooling from 1600 -1700ºF.    Frank Turley - Saturday, 06/09/07 11:34:36 EDT I have actually met a fellow who traded *down* on an anvil. He had a 407# Trenton that had a beautiful face---except where the air arc crew had done the nasty on it at a copper mine in AZ Anyway he was tired of moving it and not having an anvil he could take to demo's so I traded him a 125# PW, a screw and screwbox from a postvise and US$100 for it---my cost slightly over 50 cents a pound. What is nice is that it has the same hardy size as my main anvil and so I can share tooling and have something in it while doing other work on the main anvil. Course I wouldn't be amiss at trading up... Thomas    Thomas P - Saturday, 06/09/07 11:37:11 EDT Lord... thanks ya'll. One other reality I've spent the day thinking about is that... really... It would be hard for me to buy my lifetime anvil now, never you mind the money, because I'm still too new to this to know WHAT IT IS! Might be a post anvil, might be that gladiator. For right now, honestly, anything is going to be better than the mild steel post anvil I've been using exclusively. So here's a vote... narrowing myself to what I can both afford (Comfortably) and also go and pick up, it's down to a TFS delta 100 lb. double horn or a 175 euroanvil. They're about the same price and face size. So, back to the beginning, quick vote! Put the money into top quality or sheer mass?    drew - Saturday, 06/09/07 12:38:42 EDT User, Um.....your site is all in Russian. I am betting very few of us speak or read Russian. Could be a great site but who the heck knows? Spasiba and dos vidania!    quenchcrack - Saturday, 06/09/07 12:50:14 EDT Prof. Newbie, carbon diffuses in carbon steel at about .007" per hour at about 1750F. It moves faster at higher temperatures, slower at lower temperatures. Unless you are making knife blades forged to finished size, I would not worry about it. On the other hand, the more times you heat, the more you will decarb and if you take a yellow heat every time, you can decarb the surface considerably. If you work hot, work fast. Working in a neutral atmosphere would be a blessing but it makes the smith rather short of breath. I have tried putting a black iron pipe in the forge with charcoal granules filling part of the pipe. I put the iron on the charcoal inside the pipe. The pipe radiates heat to the workpiece and the charcoal keeps the atmosphere around it charged with CO and CO2. This tends to minimize the loss of carbon at the surface. Also, you do not really need a fully inert atmosphere, you can use nitrogen but this presents other safety problems (it displaces air) and can form nitrides on the surface that are very hard and may crack. Finally remember that in heat treating, time and temperature are inversely proportional: Long time at low heat = short time at high heat.    quenchcrack - Saturday, 06/09/07 13:02:41 EDT Need Help with Fly Press Hey, today I picked up an old fly press. It was made by J.D. Randall Co. Besides some minor honest rust, it's essentially new. The threads are pristine. The only thing about it is, it doesn't have a fly wheel on it. I'm going to make a fly wheel for it and need some input on how big and heavy the wheel should be. Here a few specs: Dia of screw 1-1/2" Stroke 10" Any other specs you need to determine what size wheel it needs? Here are some pictures. http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt021-13.jpg http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt022-8.jpg Thanks in advance.    Tyler Murch - Saturday, 06/09/07 13:04:10 EDT Tyler, Sorry to disappoint you but this is NOT a flypress. It is some kind of vertical machine vise. How do I know? 1) The screw threads are single lead (too slow even for coining) 2) The frame is much too light 3) There is no heavy thrust bearing. 4) The bar guides are for loose motion only, not heavy pressure. 5) It never had a flywheel as it was turned by a box wrench. It is a beautiful tool, but it is not a flypress.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 13:57:57 EDT Oh heck, anybody want to buy it? Seriously. email me.    Tyler Murch - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:00:31 EDT Tyler how much? Looks like it would be a great vise to modify for handwork on swords... (I don't have my browser hooked up to my e-mail at work) Thomas    Thomas P - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:07:45 EDT Thomas, how about $500. ? We can negotiate too. Here is another picture that shows the frame better. It's solid. http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt021-14.jpg    Tyler Murch - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:11:44 EDT Decarburization: Prof. Newbie, Listen to QC, he is metallurgist. Where decarburization really becomes a problem is in repeated forge welding. You are working at maximum temperatures with fluxes (that also absorb carbon). Where in heat treating the problem is only a thin surface problem in repeated forge welding it can be fractions of an inch (1/16). Smiths use this to advantage in some cases. In cable Damascus the difference creates the patterns when etched. In Japanese style direct process steel making it reduces steel that is too high of carbon OR includes some in the cast iron range. Repeated forging and welding makes the steel more homogeneous as well as reducing the carbon to reasonable levels. In working wrought iron this is not a problem. The repeated heats act to refine the metal further than originally manufactured and helps make carbon free iron form iron that may have SOME trace of carbon. You can purchase stainless foil from McMaster-Carr. A ten foot by foot wide roll cost $22 plus shipping. You can also get bags specifically for heat treating. We sell ITC-213 which is used to protect metals from oxidation at elevated temperatures. It is about $53 a pint. It will last longer than the equivalent cost in stainless foil. However, the use is slightly different. In industry it is often used to protect exotic alloys like titanium from oxidation for forging.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:22:09 EDT Tyler, While the frame is heavier than it looks from the front the platen is still too light and its still a vise. Beautiful tool if you need it.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:24:21 EDT Drew, Like when it comes to engines, you can't beat cubic inches when it comes to anvils you can't beat mass (ok actually you do beat mass...) (well you know what I mean even if I don't!)    JimG - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:32:26 EDT Guru, regarding the vertical vise platen. The platen and frame are cast as one. From the frame out it tapers out thinner. There is more meat behind it that you can't see. Thanks for the info. I am still pleased with it.    Tyler Murch - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:36:11 EDT This picture shows what I'm talking about with the platen. http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt021-15.jpg Here's a picture of the name http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt022-9.jpg Threads http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/T-Murch/tt023-2.jpg Thanks again for the info. At least now I don't have to get out in this heat and make a wheel : )    Tyler Murch - Saturday, 06/09/07 14:51:54 EDT After the initial review I was going to buy and dress a HF Central Forge made in Russia anvil, until I noticed that they have the diagnal Hardy hole. They wear the Central forge sticker and it even states that it is cast steel made in Runssia, but has the diagnal hole. Now, since I would be making many of my own tools, couldn't I just make the stakes offset so the tools would be in traditional manner? I am a wannabe, but plan on attending a blacksmithing class in Omaha Nebraska when money allows, and my 55# cast iron anvil that was made in england ain't so hot.    HF anvils again! - Saturday, 06/09/07 16:16:16 EDT After the initial review I was going to buy and dress a HF Central Forge made in Russia anvil, until I noticed that they have the diagnal Hardy hole. They wear the Central forge sticker and it even states that it is cast steel made in Russia, but has the diagnal hole. Now, since I would be making many of my own tools, couldn't I just make the stakes offset so the tools would be in traditional manner? I am a wannabe, but plan on attending a blacksmithing class in Omaha Nebraska when money allows, and my 55# cast iron anvil that was made in england ain't so hot.    Bob - Saturday, 06/09/07 16:28:19 EDT Again, thanks to everyone for answering my questions. I've got one more and then I'll try to be content. None of the anvils I'm considering for now are, in their own right, massive enough to just sit on something and be immobile. I've never quite understood how this works. If a 100 lb. anvil was forge welded to the top of of a mass of steel of INFINITE mass (just heavy), would it behave like a heavier anvil or will it always rebound like a 100 pounder? How about if it's only electrically welded around the edge. How about bolted to a log set far into the ground so tight that the anvil winces? If the anvil is made absolutely immobile, how much does that help a given anvils rebound? How much of the necessity for mass is simply that a heavy anvil will move less with the same fastening method to the same stand?    drew - Saturday, 06/09/07 17:55:51 EDT HF anvils again! For many hardy tools it simply won't make a difference, such as on hot cut chisels. It will on hardys which traditionally run the length of the anvil face, such as spring fullers. Yes, if you make your own you can simply put on the hardy diagonally.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Saturday, 06/09/07 18:24:31 EDT Drew I have a Titan. Sorry I am now just reviewing your response on anvilfire. Like vicopper said the mass is under the hammering surface. I think you would be well pleased with one. I have owned every shape and weight (600 lb) anvil. I am happy with my nimba.    - Burnt Forge - Saturday, 06/09/07 18:46:47 EDT HF anvils: 1) NEVER buy them off ebay, you can get them cheaper directly from HF. I have NEVER seen a description from HF stating the material or a warantee. The many ebay dealers selling them make up the entire line of BS used to sell them. 2) IF you buy from ebay those selling them are generally not good on handling returns and ALL the shipping (both ways) is on you. 3) They absolute worst condition OLD ANTIQUE broken down sad looking beater of a REAL ANVIL is still a much better tool. You can pick these up for $50 or less. Decent (having all their parts) but sad looking anvils sell for $100 to $150.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 19:29:48 EDT Bob, If I woke up tomorrow morning and found my anvil missing, I'd probably get in the car and drive to Harbor Freight. I'd plunk down the $90 to keep me forging until I found a true replacement anvil. The problem with the diagonal hardy hole is that it's a bad design that concentrates stress at the corners. In theory, this could cause the heel to break off. I'd bet, though, that the chances of this actually happening in normal use aren't that great. On the other hand, the anvil has a odd-size hardy hole (IIRC). Aside from maybe being at 45 degrees, tools you make for it quite likely won't fit your next anvil. But then, by the time you're ready for a real anvil, you may be ready and able to make some better hardy tools anyway. You could always pass the anvil with the tools on to another beginner. If you have the money and a little time, you can't go wrong buying a decent anvil. A nice chunk of scrap steel is an option too, if you can find one. But, especially if you live near a HF, their anvil is a quick and cheap way to get started. My only caveat is that I'm assuming their "cast steel" anvils still are. I'm not sure that's been confirmed.    Mike BR - Saturday, 06/09/07 19:36:52 EDT Burnt forge... what type work are you doing with the thing?    drew - Saturday, 06/09/07 20:27:49 EDT The sticker on the side does say made in Russia and that it is steel. I appreciate your replies, I did research before posting here, but the talk stopped at the 45* hardy hole.    Bob - Saturday, 06/09/07 21:11:56 EDT Steel? What kind? How hard? How good? Steel can be pure iron that has ANY quantity of carbon, even an insignificant trace. This is less than mild steel and cannot for practical purposes be heat treated. It can also have nearly as much carbon as cast iron and be so poorly heat treated that it will crumble or spall under the slightest hammer blow. There are an enormous number of cast iron anvils being sold as "steel" because it is the right buzz word. So what is the quality of the casting and heat treating? Foundry work can be very sloppy and a huge amount of (cheap) sand end up in the metal. Castings can also be poured from the foamy dregs of the melt that are normally discarded or recycled. Often low quality products that require no specific alloy are made of the dregs. . . In both cases you get trashy metal that breaks easily no matter what kind. So you need to know your foundry's reputation OR have a good warantee. On anvils this should include shipping at the seller's expense. Heat treating is one of the expensive steps in making an anvil. Many cheap cast anvils are not heat treated in any way. Neither stress relieved, hardened or tempered. Good steel is difficult and expensive to cast. Good foundries have laboratories and test every melt. They use good clean sand (it gets very dirty AND wears out) and good foundry practice. Sloppy foundries use high quantities of scrap which produces poor quality metal and often do not know WHAT the final alloy is. They use their sand until it will not bond any more even after adding fresh bonding agents or a little fresh sand to the mix. They often do not care anything about quality control and expect the company that orders the casting to be the quality control by sending back the rejects. If all the seller wants is a cheap product they just slap a label on the product and sell it. THAT is what you get when you buy a bottom of the line anvil. Mystery metal from a source that DOES NOT CARE.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 21:52:53 EDT OBTW - "Central Forge" means NOTHING. It is the Harbor Freight "house brand", Like Sears "Kenmore" (used to be Kenwood). Tools with this label are made all over the world and often the source is not identified or misidentified.    - guru - Saturday, 06/09/07 21:56:32 EDT Guru, People keep asking about anvil size vs. worthiness for use. I was wondering if there was a formula to use for mass of anvil necessary for the size of iron to be forged, (like the one for hammer weight appropriate for anvil size). I have a old 160lb A&H, on a wood base and it "seems" to work well for forging on everything up to 3/4 inch stock (with a 3.25lb hammer), but I have no basis for comparison with what the pro's use.    Thumper - Saturday, 06/09/07 22:14:56 EDT Drew, The rebound of an anvil is a function of the hardness of the face more than the mass. If you get even a small anvil face hard enough, it will rebound a hammer very well, assuming that the hammer isn't so heavy it significantly moves the anvil with eery blow. Likewise, even a huge anvil with a soft face will have little rebound. The issue of rebound is only a reference point for determining the hardness of the face. When forging, you have relatively soft hot steel between the hammer and the anvil, so rebound ain't gonna happen, right? As for mounting method/materials increasinng the effective mass of an anvil, the answer is yes. If you make a small anvil a contiguous and continuous part of a larger mass, it will have much more effective forging mass. But...the mass you stick it to has to be consistent with the material of the anvil. Wood isn't going to do it, sand won't do it, and a ton of feathers won't do it, either. You need to paste it on a large mass of steel with roughly the same resistance to deformation and resilience as the anvil itself, to get the increase in effective mass. Now, a heavy cast iron base will do the trick, or Fisher anvils would be worthless, which they most assuredly are not; they're wonderful anvils, because that cast iron is resilient, dense and doesn't ring, which I happen to like. Next to my Nimba Gladiator, my 250# Fisher is my favorite anvil.    vicopper - Saturday, 06/09/07 23:02:39 EDT Guru, I found a 100lb Fisher&Norris Eagle anvil hidden in my garage. It was the last model made as it has most of the paper label still on it. (Date of the newspaper it was sittin on was 1968). I saw on one of the pages an old anvil cleaned up. The one I have is in excellent condition, hardly used. How would I clean/restore the exterior of the anvil. Thanks, Rich.    Rich - Sunday, 06/10/07 02:18:29 EDT Frank, QC, and Guru, I thank you all. It sounds as though I've been a little too cautious/paranoid. Perhaps. I'm a woodworker and am trying my hand at making some tools. So almost certainly the same criteria for a good knife would be of concern here. And I like to do the best job that I can. I know a guy who makes knives and will do final heat treatment for me, and who is also willing to anneal so that I can do my own shaping, but he uses an oven with neither atmosphere nor foils/paints or anything else to protect the metal. He uses a triple heat/quench method and, based on what I've read, this could potentially draw out even more carbon. Now admittedly, he stays in the annealing ranges you've mentioned, Frank (1450-1500~), so likely the 1750F diffusion rate described by QC is not even a remote issue. That, at least, is comforting. I just want to be sure. My smith understands curiosity, and won't be offended if I anneal it myself (though I'll have to use another friend's kiln). So in short, I want to be in on as much of the process as I can, I want to turn out a good piece, which means I'm concerned about even the slightest loss of carbon, and now I'm just plain interested in the problem itself. My thanks again, gentlemen, for your time and help. If I'm being silly, please just let me know, so that I can send the thing off to my betters and save sweat for matters of real importance. Otherwise, well, what was the name of that paint again? :) Regards, Prof Newbie    Prof Newbie - Sunday, 06/10/07 03:57:53 EDT To append to the last message: In case it wasn't made more clear amidst all that rambling, the only heat this piece of steel would ever see is at annealing and final heat treatment. No forging. Thanks again, Prof Newbie    Prof Newbie - Sunday, 06/10/07 04:03:29 EDT Rich: I'll have to ask Richard Postman next time we speak but I believe your anvil was not made by Fisher & Norris, but by Crossley, even though the decal may say Eagle Anvil Works. About 1960 the City of Trenton wanted to put a new highway through the property where the F&N foundry was located, forcing Mrs. Andrew (then owner) to sell. In 1961 she did so (apparently including all rights and patents) to Crossley Machine Company, also in Trenton. They were mainly in the business of making clay working machinery for the ceramic industry. Crossley continued to make Eagle brand anvils until the 1970s. They went out of business in the 1990s and their plant has also been demolished. In an 1957 article Mrs. Andrew came off as being very proud of the Eagle logo on their anvils and I doubt they would have dropped it off in favor of a decal. Therefore, must have been Crossley's decision. Unless your anvil says FISHER on it, removing the decal will make it just another no-name anvil. On anvil manufacturer's identification I have noticed those who put on their logo/brand name tend to be very good anvils. Those without identification tend to be the junkers - as if they company wasn't willing to have the product associated with them. Rather like those HF 110-lb ones with the small decal. However, there is a possibility even Fisher & Norris did the same by producing a low-quality anvil with a six-pointed star, but without putting FISHER on it.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Sunday, 06/10/07 07:24:21 EDT Thanks again! My plan had been to bust the piece of mild steel I'm using as a post anvil (3" x 12" x 24") out of its concrete base, saw it in half and make it the top of an anvil stand. Basically lay the two 3 x 12" square pieces on their side and glue and weld them together. Now originally I had wanted to weld bolts/threaded rod to the top and bolt the anvil down to it, giving me the option of removing it to take it with me. Glue would work better, eh? Or better yet... I could trade my mild steel post for your gladiator and call it a day. Come to think of it, I'll bake you a cake to sweeten the deal. -Drew    drew - Sunday, 06/10/07 08:00:16 EDT Prof Newbie, You might mean triple tempering, as ol' Bill Moran, the knifemaker, used to do. Hang in there.    Frank Turley - Sunday, 06/10/07 08:39:17 EDT Later fisher with Label: See our anvil article on Fisher Norris Anvils If you are cleaning one of these up you DO NOT want to damage the paper label. That adds considerable collector value to this anvil. While many of these were made, they are rarely found with the paper label. In fact you do not want to do anything to this anvil other than wipe off the dust and put a light film of oil on the face beig careful not to get any on the label. THEN, you may want to test the waters to find out how much it is worth with the label. You can probably get at least as much as a NEW anvil and if not then wait a couple years and you will. Collecting of rare specimens of anvils has become pretty hot at this time. An antique anvil recently sold for $7,500 on ebay. It was quite rare and from a well known collection. However, prices over $1,000 have been quite common for collectible anvils in recent years.    - guru - Sunday, 06/10/07 08:42:00 EDT Drew, Your piece of steel weighs (in this case, masses) about 250#, so it would certainly make a good base. If I were going to put a small (100#) anvil on that sort of base, I'd cut it in three pieces, each 3x8x12. Then I'd weld those three pieces together to make a piece 8"x9"x12", with the weld seams running vertically. Now you have a 8x9 base area to fasten your anvil to. That should be a decently big surface for the foot of a small anvil. If you need it bigger, just add a piece of 1" plate to the top, being sure to plug weld the center of the plate in a few places, as well as welding around the edges. Mount your anvil to the base using whatever method you like to ensure it makes as complete contact with the base as possible. If it is not necessary for the anvil to be portable, and the anivl is cast steel, I might go ahead and weld the feet to the base. A clamping arrangement with large bolts and holddown plates would work nearly as well, and the anvil could later be removed. Either way, you'll end up with a small anvil that works like a MUCH bigger anvil, at least on the main area of the face. The horn and heel will still be small and not directly over the mass of the base, so you can't expect to work 2" stock on them. They'll darn sure sit still, though, instead of hopping around with every blow, but don't let that lull you into thinking you can use a sledge on them; you don't want to exceed their strength and break them. Gluing, when I'm talking about steel, refers to welding, really. The only glue I use in setting an anvil is a 100& silicone construction adhesive such as Geocel that I put between a heavy anvil and the stand to keep the anvil from ringing. That glue, however, means the stand adds NO effective mass to the anvil, it just means you have to move both pieces as one. It's worth it to me, even on the Gladiator which is already heavy, because without that silicone, the Gladiator rings so loudly you need hearing protection. With the silicone, the Gladiator is almost as quiet as my Fisher. To keep your anvil/base combo from ringing too loudly, you can put a strong magnet under the heel and horn. If you use neodymium magnets, this works prertty well. Or you can mount the combo on a wooden base using the silicone, which should work fine. With a 9 or 10 inch tall anvil, plus a 12 tall base, you won't need much of a stand to be at a comfortable height. You will want some sort of outrigger-type feet on the base to stabilize it, though. Or weld it to a piece of 3/4" plate about 24" square and you can stand on it to add resistance to movement. With all that cutting and welding, you're going to have a significant investment in this project. Personally, I'd spend my money on a bigger anvil like the 175# Euroanvil, or a good used Fisher of around 200#, and start working to make the money to buy a Gladiator down the road. Did I happen to mention that I love my Gladiator? (grin)    vicopper - Sunday, 06/10/07 09:29:28 EDT Drew Tools and decorative iron work. The Titan has enough mass under the working surface to function as a much heavier anvil. Much more than many heavier anvils unless you are talking in the hundreds of pounds. I never bought into having to have a huge anvil theory. Some do and if it pleases them that is great too. It comes down to will the anvil you buy do what you want it to do. Will you be happy with it. I think any of the anvils you have mentioned would do both. Some good folks have given you good direction too. Sort out all the info and see what you will like. If you buy a Nima tell Willene Brande referred you.    - Burnt Forge - Sunday, 06/10/07 10:24:01 EDT Heavy Anvil Bases: While these have come and gone in popularity they just make the anvil more difficult to move (which can be a good thing or a bad thing). If you forge welded or used a high percentage weld to attach an anvil to a steel base then the base becomes part of the anvil. So yes the effective mass has gone up. However, it depends on the shape of the mass. Mass directly under the anvil body is working mass. Mass spread out in the legs of a stand does very little, even if welded on. It helps make the anvil immovable but does not help in forging effectiveness. I have been a fan of wooden stands and benches (shop use not welding or blacksmith) but I have been looking at a move out of the country and ANY wood (even in furniture) can lead to problems.    - guru - Sunday, 06/10/07 11:55:10 EDT Frank, You may be right, though I could have sworn he used the term "triple quench." I don't know enough about it (or I wouldn't be asking all these goofy questions), but I'll ask him. So, is decarb not really a problem in this case? And come to think of it, should I gather that triple heating in any respect is not really orthodox practice? It made no sense to me when he first mentioned it, but then, what do I know? Thanks again.    Prof Newbie - Sunday, 06/10/07 15:39:07 EDT There actually is triple quenching as well as triple normalizing as well as triple tempering. Evidently multiple quenching puts the grainsize and carbon in a better state for subsequent quenches---FOR SOME ALLOYS---for others it will possibly degrade the steel by more grain growth an decarb. You may want to visit some of the knife/sword specific forums if you want to get into mind boggling discussions of heat treat voodoo... Last time I looked at anvils at harbour freight the store personel didn't know the difference between cast iron and cast steel---sort of like a used car dealer not knowing the difference between a Yugo and a Porsche. I have actually bought a 55# cast iron anvil, we drilled it out and plumbed it for propane to make a camp stove out of it for the MOB at Quad-State. It was *very* soft and graphite rich cast iron---drilled like butter except for 1 hard spot we ran into during several feet of drilling! Mass and inertia and conservation of momentum/energy are all involved in hammering hot metal on an anvil. You want a large, hard anvil without a lot of mass in projections that tend to "flop" around during impact---of course you need good instrumentation to see them flop but flop they do! Thomas    - Thomas Powers - Sunday, 06/10/07 17:16:28 EDT Sorry Tyler I get US$20 a week to spend on all my hobbies and that's 10 times more than I paid for my large flypress. I'll continue using my flypress for the odd clamping job with a bungy applying pressure to the wheel to keep it tight. Thomas    - Thomas Powers - Sunday, 06/10/07 17:30:50 EDT When I paint exterior steel work I try to avoid using red paint. This is because, in my experience, red paint has a much greater propensity to go dull and degrade than any other colour. What is the reason for this? Is there anything I can do to prevent it?    philip in china - Sunday, 06/10/07 22:09:20 EDT Prof Newbie: If You are going to put Your heart & soul not to mention a good bit of time into making some really good tools I suggest You buy some tool steel to make them from, and have them professionally heat treated by a commercial heat treater.The tool steel comes as ground flat stock, it is fully anealed right out of the package, and the commercial heat treater can properly heat treat it to it's full potential. I have read a lot of these knifemakers heat treating methods, and they are pretty far off from what We did in the tool & die industry. We folowed the tool steel manufacturer's methods PERIOD. They hire real metalurgists to figure this stuff out and test it, why go with what some ill equipped amature thinks works best. My feelings on this topic are a lot like what Jock thinks about homebrew finishes V/S paint.    - Dave Boyer - Sunday, 06/10/07 22:12:29 EDT Philip, Red is at the wrong end of he color spectrum, soit absorbs more UV than other colors. UV breaks down the binders in the paint. Also, for years the pigments for red were composedof cadmium salts, which tend to be less stable than the lead salts used for the blues and greens, or the carbon black used for, you guessed it, blacks. Cadmium in not used in paints much anymore, I don't think, and the more recent automotive reds seem to hold up much better than the old ones. That is, IF they are a single-process paint, rather than a base coat/clear coat system. Clear coats are notoriously susceptible to UV degradation, exposing the underlying substrate to the elements.    vicopper - Sunday, 06/10/07 22:51:04 EDT Philip, Sorry, I forgot to answer the second part of your question in my previous post. To get a stable red finish, use the very best automotive acrylic enamel you can buy, and use the type that accepts the addition of a urethane hardener additive. My personal preference was Ditzler Delstar with DXR-80 urethane additive, when I was doing a lot of painting for outdoor work. It will hold up for ten years on a car, so it will do it on properly prepared and primed steel. NOTE: Cars get waxed, and good waxes contain UV inhibitors. Wax your painted work, and have your clients keep them waxed periodically. Best if you supply them the wax when you deliver the work, so you know they have the good stuff. For small work that will be hand painted with a brush, get some One Shot brand lettering enamels from a sign painters' supply. It is somewhat expensive, but it covers well and holds up in the weather, if properly applied, waxed, etc.    vicopper - Sunday, 06/10/07 23:00:19 EDT Dave, Your words are well-taken. You actually have voiced a lot of my own doubts in this. A lot of the problem in all of this is money. Bar stock is not cheap, at least as I've found it. I'm guessing here, but commercial heat treaters usually don't deal with Joe Schmo, and if they do, they probably charge a fortune. Plus there is something romantic about taking something old and making it into something new, be it craft or materials. This is, of course, in large part the purpose of this website, no? So there has to be someone on planet earth a) who knows their craft, b) who doesn't have their nose in the air, and c) who isn't a highway robber. If you know anyone who fits that bill, by all means, let me know, and I'll be happy to talk with them. I shall now end my short rant. But I thank you again for your candid assessment. Yours, Prof Newbie    Prof Newbie - Sunday, 06/10/07 23:19:36 EDT It's not the size of the stock, but how you use it that counts. The recommended MINIMUM size of anvil is 10X the weight of hammer used. Thus, a 10-pound sledge would need an anvil of at least 100 pounds. This may not necessarily be optimum, however. My power hammer has an anvil-to-hammer ratio of about 13:1. You will likely notice greater efficiency, if you had a heavier anvil (face hardnesses being equal). Some folks compensate by wrapping chain around the waist of the anvil. This deadens the noise a little and creates a bit more mass (it is also a handy place to put the chisel / punch you are using). The Nimba anvils are quite good, by the way.    Paul - Sunday, 06/10/07 23:52:04 EDT Is there a movie on this flight? Zzzzzz....    Miles Undercut - Monday, 06/11/07 00:09:29 EDT 10:1 is for powerhammers, not hand hammers, and 15:1 is preferred. With a 10# sledge you would very soon destroy a 100# anvil. Try a ratio of more like 50:1 if you want to be realistic. A 100# anvil is aboutright for a 2# hand hammer. Those big anvils in railroad shops were big for a reason; those guys were striking with 8 to 16 pound sledges and needed the inertia of a big anvil.    vicopper - Monday, 06/11/07 00:48:13 EDT i am a french farriers and i forge sometimes !and i want to know if they have opportunity to work in your country? ihave few experiences like a farriers 14years speak english spanish portugues    - frederic - Monday, 06/11/07 05:54:43 EDT Frederic: Try contacting Anvil Magazine. It is probably one of the leading farrier publications. (anvil@anvilmag.com)    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Monday, 06/11/07 07:00:14 EDT Could you explain the reason for the 40:1 anvil to hammer mass ratio? Why does it matter if I use a smaller mass hammer? Why is the 40:1 considered ideal? Have just had an email from Vaughans in UK that my 300lb anvil is ready for shipping with my leg vice. Hope I am back from vacation before they arrive.    philip in china - Monday, 06/11/07 08:17:59 EDT Philiip, You can certainly use a smaller mass hammer with a large anvil, but the ratio becomes important when you try to use too big a hammer. If you drop much below about 50:1 for hand hammering, the anvil simply doesn't have the mass to resist the energy of the hammer and thus the hammer moves the anvil, diminishing the amount of work that is transferred to the work piece. The energy of the hammer is a function of both its mass and its velocity, so it has more available enrgy than its mass alone might indicate. The anvil just sits there, so you are dependent upon its mass alone to resist the enery of the hammer. Your 300# Vaughns anvil should allow you to work well with a hammer up to 6#, and you could stretch that a bit if needed. A 3# hand hammer, which is more nearly what you will be using, I suspect, will achieve about optimum efficiency with an anvil that size.    vicopper - Monday, 06/11/07 08:37:42 EDT Cost of Bar Stock: Even high priced tools steels are cheaper than labor processing scrap. Mild steel bar stock is FAR cheaper than labor (even in non-commercial hobby applications). AND both are infinitely cheaper than something that you may work days on then quench and have it shatter in a million pieces because you did not knoe what it was. When you buy NEW tool steel you get the following: A known alloy. See our Junkyard Steel FAQ if you believe this has no value. Anealing. This is difficult to do in many tool steels and far beyound the capacity of amateurs. The steel is also in a "ready to go" condition that can be heat treated without further conditioning. Used steel and steel processed in the forge may be FAR FAR from the optimum condition. Clean straight stock that is unstressed or distorted. Instructions on correct heat treatment. W1 tool steel is fairly inexpensive the world over.    - guru - Monday, 06/11/07 08:58:29 EDT Anvil Efficiencies: VIc covered it pretty well but there is more. The ratio has to do with work efficiency. Anvils must be looked at as a mass floating in space. If the anvil has a mass equal to the hammer then the energy transfered to the anvil would send it off into space at the same velocity as the hammer WAS moving and the hammer stops. This is like billiard balls striking each other. One stops and the other flies off at very nearly the exact same speed at the one that struck it. When a hammer with half the mass of the anvil strikes the anvil then theoretically the anvil would move away at the square root of the velocity of the hammer however, the hammer rebounds some and the movement is less. As the anvil mass increases it moves less and less until the hammer has very little effect on the anvil. Anything placed between this anvil and hammer will see most of the energy of the hammer. However if we go back to that one to one ratio the piece in between sees only a very small amount of energy depending on its hardness. The chart above was designed to show the anvil efficiency of power hammers. In this case economics is quite important because of the sizes involved. Chambersburg engineers decided that 20:1 was the point of diminishing returns for a MACHINE at an efficiency of 70%. However, machines do not tire and they do not feel the pain of fatigue that a living thing does. We also assume that the machine's energy is of much less value than the human's. So the organic worker needs a higher level of efficiency. At 50:1 the efficiency is about 96%. But at 100:1 the efficiency may only be 97%. So there is no point to ever increasing the hammer to anvil ratio above 50:1 but very good reasons to have it as high as 50:1. Now. . . from thousands of years of working at the anvil blacksmiths found that they needed an anvil in the range of 100 pounds to 600 pounds. The 100 pound anvil is VERY efficient for the worker doing light work and the farrier shoeing horses. For portability they use a 125 pound anvil and a 2 to 2.5 pound hammer. A very good match. In the commercial shop where heavy hand forging is done the heaviest practical hand hammer is 4 to 5 pounds. Smiths found from daily use that they needed a 200 to 300 pound anvil for this work. THUS the standard weight for a shop anvil became about 250 pounds. Shops that used strikers could use 8 to 10 pound sledges with a reduced efficiency on occasion and still get the job done. But in shops where machine forging was done and striking was commonly done using sledges over 10 pounds it was found that much heavier anvils were needed. 500 to 600 pounds was the common rail road shop anvil. The undefined 50:1 ratio was determined from daily hands on use over hundreds of years (after the cost of steel was not a serious concern) and without the mathematics that Chambersburg quantified above (also using a lot of field testing). In the modern shop where we have small power hammers that do most of the work that would have been done with 4 pound hand hammers and 10 pound sledges we tend to use smaller hammers in the 3 pound range and occasionally an 8 or 10 pound sledge. Thus a 150 to 200 pound anvil is a very nice size. For hobbiests that rarely use a hammer over 3 pounds and commonly use a 2.5 lb (1000 to 1200 grams) a 100 to 150 pound anvil is fine. A ratio can also be applied to the size of the work being done but this is a bit more complicated. However, you will clearly find that you need a heavy hammer or a sledge and striker to work 1" square. This puts you in the 200-500 pound range again. You can work 1/4" square stock using a 1 pound hammer thus you could work on a 50 pound anvil if you did nothing larger. However, it is much easier to work 1/4" stock using a 3 pound hammer. . . Note also that a mentioned above (Thomas I think) that the shape of an anvil makes a lot of difference. Long thin farriers anvils are quite springy and flexible. They are designed to provide as much work surface as possible with the least mass for portability. When forging on the center of the anvil the horn and heel actually hold still as the body moves downward from the blow. The more mass that is directly under the hammer or in a cone shaped zone under the hammer the more efficient the anvil. Anvils must also resist sideways blows out on the horn and heel. These places have the advantage of leverage over the mass in the center. In normal use these blows are nothing like heavy forging blows but they are not infrequent. The anvil mass, base and attachment to the base needs to resist this twisting motion largely by friction. So there is also more to anvils than just mass and hardness.    - guru - Monday, 06/11/07 10:26:00 EDT That one needs to be filed as a FAQ, Jock. I definitely have noticed a difference in efficiency with my 450# Gladiator, compared to my 250# Fisher when, as you noted, I am working on the side of the anvil or out on the heel or horn. That extra mass and brute force solidity makes a very noticeable difference, even on relatively small stock such as 1/2". As an example, the other night I was forging a handful of hooks for my powerhammer tool rack. I was using 1/4" round, and working very quickly to knock out a dozen hooks before supper. I noticed that, workingon the Nimba, I could start a point taper at a red heat and have it reach yellow from the hammer work. Yes, I was whaling away, but I can't usually impart energy to heat stock like that on a smaller anvil. It made the work kind of fun, trying to see how far I could chase the heat up the stock. I've done that lots on a powerhammer, but never before so consistently with a hand hammer. Have I mentioned that I love my Nimba? (grin)    vicopper - Monday, 06/11/07 11:43:19 EDT I just got the notice that my CSI membership had expired a few days ago. I think I was one of the first charter members and gladly renew my membership. Anvilfire provides the most comprehensive forum for learning and exchanging ideas anywhere on the internet. Although I don't post often I have been lurking here in the shodows since around 1993. The membership is well worth the $52. I stand and applaude Guru, the elected CSI board that work to keep things running and The Guru's helpers that answer questions and pass along the knowledge to keep blacksmithing alive and well. Thank you everyone!    R Guess - Monday, 06/11/07 12:10:21 EDT Prof. N: New bar stock really isn't that expensive unless you're buying high alloy steels, which a guy in your position probably isn't equipped to handle anyway. (I'm not.) Twenty feet of 1 1/4"x1/4" 5160 (hot rolled) will cost you $54.12 from Admiral Steel, plus shipping. With a piece of stock that size you could make more chisels (just for example) than you'd likely use in a lifetime of woodworking. Admiral also sells shorter lengths of simpler steels (like 1095) for about the same cost per foot. It really is a small price to pay for certainty, especially when you factor in the labor involved in hunting down junkyard steels, and the time wasted in making tools that fail because they had hidden flaws from years of service as leaf springs (or whatever), or because you were only able to guess at how to heat treat them properly.    Matt B - Monday, 06/11/07 12:24:13 EDT RGuess, On behalf of the CSI Board of Directors, let me thank you for your continued support. It is people like you who help to keep Anvilfire alive and well. As our first Chairman, Jim "PawPaw" Wilson used to say, where else can you get this kind of information for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a week? There simply is no other resource that does what Anvilfire does, and we all need to work and contribute to keep it going. Thank you for your contribution, Sir! Rich Waugh, Chairman, CSI, Inc.    vicopper - Monday, 06/11/07 12:34:30 EDT Thanks for all the info on how/why hammer to anvil ratio works. My wife will be happy ot find out that a larger anvil is no longer on my ,must have, tool list since most of my forging stays at 5/8 and below. It would have been hard to sneak it into the shop without her noticing a big hole in the check book anyway.    Thumper - Monday, 06/11/07 13:28:43 EDT Rguess, I too would like to personally say "Thank you" for your support. I would also like to encourage all that make use of this wonderful resource to become a member and make sure that we don't become a just another memory. Thank you Dave Baker Treasurer, CSI, Inc.    daveb - Monday, 06/11/07 13:59:46 EDT In the early 1970s, I was looking for an anvil, and not finding any right away I found Eagle anvils were still being made by (IIRC) the "Fisher & Norris Division of the Crosley Machine Works." They sent me a brochure and price sheet. The Eagle logo was quite prominent on the flier. While the prices were quite modest by today's standards (@$3/lb. IIRC) they were out of my college student budget. I'll look around and see if I can find the notebook I had that in. I know I threw out the old Milwaukee tool and Centaur forge catalogs that were in there, but I may have kept the anvil flyer. IIRC Joshua Kravits (SP?), who posts occasionally over on Forgemagic owns most of the surviving papers and many of the patterns from Fisher. He has been working on a museum to celebrate Fisher & Norris. My surmise on the way they were made was similar to Ken's, but apparently the trick to making the cast iron to steel weld work was in the gating of the mold, making the molten iron flow across the underside of the top plate as the mold was filled. Now, it has been a long while since this was discussed (It was back in the Keenjunk days) and it may have been Joshua K. who explained this. Now, this is all from memory, so a pinch of salt may be in order.    John Lowther - Monday, 06/11/07 16:49:14 EDT John, I know their patent made a lot about the gating but I have not read it closely. I suspect you are right that the hot metal was used to heat the plate in the mold. I just gave Dave-B a little Eagle clone that was quite old. It might have weighed 30 pounds. The steel face was only 3/16 to 1/4" thick and as brittle as the underlying cast iron. So the edges were chipped heavily. The pattern showed a line or slight offset that was supposed to make the plate LOOK 5/8" thick. . . I had a "Star" brand anvil about the same size that I also gave away. It also had a very thin plate of 3/16 to 1/4". It may have gotten hot enough to weld but it didn't stay welded. This one had pieces of the top plate missing and much of the rest loose. While Fisher did a good job a lot of others that made anvils using this technique after the patent ran out did not.    - guru - Monday, 06/11/07 17:08:05 EDT Re Fisher anvils. As is the case in many special technologies, often the patent does not tell all. The shop practices that are developed after the patent is issued to make the thing consistantly and fora reasonable price were certanly then, and often still developed in the shop, not on the drafting board. In many cases, the tricks that make or break a product are know only to the shop guys, and if they leave and the company did not have others train with the knowledable person the tricks are lost. It actually is a good bit of defending your product from ionfringement to have tricks that hide in plain site, that prevent those who don't know make your product. This of course has to be balenced against not patenting a crucial bit. Any patent is only as good as you ability to defend it in court. ($) My Dad patented a number of items in the 50's, and his small company did not have the resources to defend the