homemade anvil.

i have couple of pieces of I beam 3/8 thick 14" long and 8" wide.

also have chance of piece 4"x2"x14" solid bar for couple of bottles of wine.

plan is to cut top of I beam to 4"wide bolt and weld bar to top and shape end of it with grinder.

will be bolted to heavy bench.

anything wrong with idea or tips/improvements?

ta

Always good to have an anvil. I made one years ago from scrap 1"x4" bar. Put a horn on one end at least, mine was bits of scrap steel tube with the centre point from 1" pointed bar (old tractor fork). Best mounted on a big log rather than the bench.

Can you explain why this is the case. I only ask as every blacksmith's anvil I have ever seen have always been mounted on what is best described as a tree stump and I'm sure there is a good reason for it.

Phil

Yes. An iron stand will make the hammer 'bounce,' whereas a log or stump is 'dead'.

Geoff

I like the ones made from a piece of railway line, keeping my eye out for a bit

Mike

As a youngster still a school my Saturday job was with the local village blacksmith (mid 1960's)...it was, in many ways, and education in itself which I did not realise until many years later...I was only interested in the few shillings each week towards teh camera I badly wanted to buy,...but I digress.....

The smithy had no electrics and everything was done by the light of the forge and the heat in the metal......the blacksmith was old but a more physical and energetic man I have yet to meet. He showed me that his anvils were mounted in iron stands but rested on strips of leather as the iron was "too hard for me now i'm older"

The anvils were also mounted at his "knuckle height" and canted slightly to his right so that the flakes would vibrate off the anvil to his hammer strikes.

Yes, those old Smithys were very adaptable, I would heat his water for tea but only gently as he did not want ash in it. He had loads of corks in a box and I never did find out what they were for.

Ask him what he was making and he would say, 'E I am making a windjammer for a Ducks Axrce' Nuff said, we did not ask again but just watched. His name was, 'Robbo' He had a beautiful daughter though he was as ugly as sin. Dont think about as I was only 10 !

Clive

A mild steel angle will ring terribly but still effective. Consider finding a way to incorporate a box into the design which you fill with sand or lead shot to deaden the noise.

Nice story Clive H, bring back memories........

This is what you want Mike but I'm sorry you can't have it cus its mine Mick 😁

Railway track is carbon steel so it can be hardened. Ideal choice if you can get some.

Murray

Hi Mick,

I have used the sliding piece of an old 6" vice, I cut off the jaw part and now have a very useful "anvil" that I can strike on when needed.

I've just got a 56lbs anvil which does the job for me.

You can't stump a Theasby...

I have a 25 lb anvil I bought through Northern Tools about 14 years ago, a Chinese one. When I moved house & drilled attachment holes in it for my current bench 13 years ago, I found it was cast iron. This was the same time as I found my Chinese repro Victorian fireplace was cast steel. Both used exactly the wrong material. Hrrumph.

However, the anvil has not shattered in the use I've put it to, and would say any hefty lump of steel you can get to use as one will be worth the effort.

Regards

Richard.

I’ve got a Brooks 1 cwt Anvil I got off eBay. Paid just over £100 quid and although it had a little surface rust it was clear it had never been used. Current price of the same model is now over £600!

Rail track sections make good Anvils. I dug up a couple of old 13 inch lengths (36lbs ea) in my property a few years ago (near London - Brighton line). dims are nearest to 100lb ARA-A spec. cleaned up easy and shiny.

Hi, I made this one about 30 or so years ago, was lucky enough to get an off cut of a brand new length while cutting six lengths to size for a new weighbridge for the company I used to work for then.

Mick, your plan sounds reasonable to me, but I would cut the base back a bit like on a normal blacksmiths anvil to allow your shaped bit to over hang the end of the bench. The base can get in the way at times when using the shaped bit.

Regards Nick

Similarly for me Clive - I used to take the cart horses to be shod at our man - Mr Lewis. Can still smell the smoke given off as the hot shoe blended with the horse's foot. He also was blunt - "I'm not going to bugger about welding pram wheels" and such - but he did do that for my developing go-kart. Also had a beautiful daughter - not wise to tamper with that, especially if dad had a hammer in his hand. A nice warm place to spend part of a winter evening though.

Here is my Anvil, it was an apprentice piece which I made in Germany whilst on a three month apprentice exchange scheme in 1973.