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anvil purchase dilemna
- Thread starter HSC ///
- Start date
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 193
you only think you don't need the horn of the anvil 
-Jeff F
-Jeff F
FWIW if you wanted to pick the best steel to make an Anvil out of, it's probably H-13. Overkill? Definitely, but you'll never have to worry about spot detempering.
The lack of a real heel on that anvil is particularly appealing to me as a bladesmith. I figure it's easily got the overall centerline mass of a 150-200lb anvil, and it'll be *very* comfortable to get up close on the heel and work the way a non-farrier smith *should* be working, parallel waist to his work, instead of standing in front of the side of an anvil plinking away like a limp wristed dork, swinging a baby hammer like he's worried about a sprain. ;D That's why I prefer a london pattern anvil, and why they have square heels, so you can get your pelvis right up to the heel, and be over your work at the waist of the anvil, parallel to the work, with your hammer at 90 degrees opposed, so your blows near, and far half-hammer face, and full on center, don't twist or distort the work, and allow maximum forging efficiency.
The whole standing parallel to the anvil, facing the side, comes from farriers, who admittedly, brought smithing basically back from the brink of death, but it's become forgotten by most, that there's a reason in their work, why they stand that way, and why, the rest of us, usually, shouldn't.
LOL, two rants in one thread, I'm on a roll?
any experience with the Mathewson? mathewsonmetals
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2010
- Messages
- 2,424
No, hadn't heart of it previously. Small for a two-heel anvil, and two pritchels to me is useless, without an accompanying hardy on the other end. Looks good/decent, but the info is limited. Still, while I thought the double heeled fisher was really interesting, and would have been a boon for striker work (it was big, and you make the most of top-bottom tooling with a striker, otherwise you often need a guillotine, or you need a pritchel hold-down for your work, on top of a bottom tool) I didn't mean to imply it was optimal for bladesmithing, nor do I believe the above anvil is either.
Yeah, it's bigger than JH's colonial, weight wise, but all the extra mass is over the extra heel. Doesn't add value IMO, since all it has is an extra pritchel. Not really sure what the design choice here was. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say; the added hardy was cost prohibitive, but they wanted symmetry, so stuck with the extra heel. It is a very attractive anvil however; I stick with my previous statement that, the horn is a very useful attachment; it's ubiquity is justified.
To be fair, even the big double heeled anvil with matching hardy holes and pritchels is such a highly specific thing; I've only ever seen one. I can only think of some highly contrived scenarios where you could utilize both at the same time, and even then, a square block with two hardy's, would be just as useful. I always imagined that anvil was made for some incredibly particular job.