Anvil, Vise and Tongs! Repair Advise Needed

Daniel Fairly Knives

Daniel Fairly Knives

Full Time Knifemaker
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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My Dad called me today and he found a post vise, tongs and an Armitage Anvil for sale! It was a great deal so I got him to pick it up for me! I'm really excited, Blacksmithing is something I have always been interested in. He also picked up a hardy hole tool that is for a bigger anvil. :D

The face is flat and a hammer has great rebound from what my Dad could tell. I think it sounds like it will be a good anvil from the limited research I have done so far. The anvil is 150 pounds.

The guy selling it thought it had great rebound but mentioned it was pretty beat up on the face with dings, the edges have been welded at one point for a repair job. There is a local welder that supposedly knows how to fill them in... I hope this is OK. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

The hardy hole tool apparently has a channel for 1/4" wire in it, I'm not sure what it is... I haven't seen it yet... maybe for making chain and that sort of thing? I have some books I need to look at with hardy hole tools but I posted here first in my excitement! I'm assuming I can grind the hardy hole tool to fit but I'll see if that is a good idea. Opinions?

As far as knives go I'm going to stay a stock removal guy for the most part. I would like to make some tribal or forge finished knives though, it would be awesome!

I'm going to start looking for a good stump. :D
 
Welcome to the Dark Side..... You know you wanna forge just one blade! Then another...... And another.........
 
Brian Ayres said:
Welcome to the Dark Side..... You know you wanna forge just one blade! Then another...... And another.........
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Exactly! :D I just need to figure out the forge next! I'm going to use charcoal and forced air or at least hope to, my buddy ran a smelter fired by local pinion wood!
 
Tom Lively designed a great coal/charcoal forge using simple stuff you can find locally. Works like a charm and is dirt cheap...

I wouldn't worry too much about the condition of the anvil at this point. It's something to use and learn on before you worry about welding it up. IF you ever need a crisp angle, you can build a hardy tool for that. In fact, a lot of knifemaking steps can be done very well with nothing but hardy tools (drawing out, fullering, piercing, bending, etc) and making those hardy tools will go a long way towards teaching you good hammer control.

And, yes, you can grind that hardy's stem to fit your hardy hole. From your description, it sounds like you have a bottom swage for small round stock. As it is, you could use it or heat the whole thing up and beat a larger piece of round stock into the existing groove to make it bigger. There are videos on youtube that will teach you bunches!

Congratulations on the find.
 
Very nice! May the gods of black boogers smile upon you (work with coal and you will understand this one), and the hair quickly regrow on your forearms!

BTW, on the Tim Lively forge I would stick to charcoal and not coal. The small air holes might give issue with the coal until you turn it into breeze coke.

Best,
Steve
 
fast14riot said:
Just think Daniel, no more grinding to profile!


-X
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Exactly! For my forged work I'd like to get good enough to forge to profile and then just sand the edges.

I'm excited to be able to make fixtures and all sorts of cool smithed stuff. I want to make some candle holders like they used in mines and that sort of thing. I need to go find a chunk of drill rod!

Salem Straub said:
Awesome. Welcome to the smithing side.
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Thanks Salem! Your work is always an inspiration.


VaughnT said:
Tom Lively designed a great coal/charcoal forge using simple stuff you can find locally. Works like a charm and is dirt cheap...

I wouldn't worry too much about the condition of the anvil at this point. It's something to use and learn on before you worry about welding it up. IF you ever need a crisp angle, you can build a hardy tool for that. In fact, a lot of knifemaking steps can be done very well with nothing but hardy tools (drawing out, fullering, piercing, bending, etc) and making those hardy tools will go a long way towards teaching you good hammer control.

And, yes, you can grind that hardy's stem to fit your hardy hole. From your description, it sounds like you have a bottom swage for small round stock. As it is, you could use it or heat the whole thing up and beat a larger piece of round stock into the existing groove to make it bigger. There are videos on youtube that will teach you bunches!

Congratulations on the find.
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OK, Thanks! Great information there. I realized I'll have to just make the tools! I have the tongs so I'll try to make more of them to start!

I'll look into that forge, I have access to tons of wood and coal here. Much appreciated.

RyanW said:
haha, Nice Daniel. Looking forward to this!
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Thanks Ryan!

stevomiller said:
Very nice! May the gods of black boogers smile upon you (work with coal and you will understand this one), and the hair quickly regrow on your forearms!

BTW, on the Tim Lively forge I would stick to charcoal and not coal. The small air holes might give issue with the coal until you turn it into breeze coke.

Best,
Steve
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Heh heh!!! :D I may try pine charcoal as I live in a pine forest, if I have bad luck with that I'll gather some pinion wood, that stuff burns so hot it's nuts. I know of a coal bank or two as well.
 
Big Question

Thoughts on welding the anvil for repair?

My Dad dropped the anvil off at the welding place as his gift to me, honestly I am a bit worried! :eek: The edges have been welded before, apparently it looks pretty rough. I figured radiusing the edges with a grinder would be better.

The welder mentioned something about drilling holes in it to weld it...

Welding the face really worries me, should this be avoided?

I bet the welder hasn't worked on it yet, I hope for some thoughts on the repairs so I can save it if need be.

It is a Mouse Hole Forge anvil, the body is wrought iron.
 
Need pics Daniel to give advice on repair. Welding shouls generally be avoided in most cases, unless it's really bad, and you're prepared to lay down a lot of hardfacing rod via adept tig skills, and then do a lot of grinding. Bad edges are usually better off being radiused with a flap disc, and minor nicks and such can be treated the same, its just important not to chase them too deep.

Pics before you do *anything*.
 
I'd hesitate to weld an anvil unless you research it beforehand.

Does the welder have a kiln/oven big enough to Orr-heat it before welding? Dies he know how to weld tool steel vs mild?

Pics would be very helpful to answer questions. Remember, if forging mainly knives you don't need the entire face to be perfect.
 
javand said:
Need pics Daniel to give advice on repair. Welding shouls generally be avoided in most cases, unless it's really bad, and you're prepared to lay down a lot of hardfacing rod via adept tig skills, and then do a lot of grinding. Bad edges are usually better off being radiused with a flap disc, and minor nicks and such can be treated the same, its just important not to chase them too deep.

Pics before you do *anything*.
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Hey thanks for the help! I doubt I can get any photos, the anvil is 1000 miles away and my Dad's computer is down. I agree though, I really want to see it myself.

It sounds like it could be welded if he guy knows what he is doing. The welder has has a local shop for 30 years and does all sorts of welding but I have no idea if he knows about heat treat and that sort of thing. I don't know a lot about welding besides what I learned in high school shop class but I assumed it could cause tempering problems within the anvil face?

Brian Ayres said:
I'd hesitate to weld an anvil unless you research it beforehand.

Does the welder have a kiln/oven big enough to Orr-heat it before welding? Dies he know how to weld tool steel vs mild?

Pics would be very helpful to answer questions. Remember, if forging mainly knives you don't need the entire face to be perfect.
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I need to find out, I'll see what I can do.

I assume any repair could be bad, my Dad just wants to get it fixed to help me out. I don't know if that would help or not though!


Thanks guys for your thoughts on this, very much appreciated. I have been doing a lot of research and it seems some people say they are OK to repair and some say not to touch them. It seems the quality of the repair has to do with the guy doing it.
 
Yeah, and it's tricky, highly specific work, even varies from one anvil manufacturer to another. For instance, some have thick enough face plates that you can surface or blanchard grind through most of the bad stuff and have a near new face. Some are so thin that any grinding will ruin them.

Welding bad spots is usually a bad idea I believe. If its bad enough to really need that you're probably almost better to reface the entire anvil with hardfacing rod, and then grind it, but that's likely to be very expensive if you can't diy. A number of people have made anvils from mild plate and then hardfaced them to very good effect, but its a time consuming and difficult process.

Best bet may be to just leave it alone until you get it. An improper attempt at anvil repair can easily do a lot more damage than good.
 
javand said:
Yeah, and it's tricky, highly specific work, even varies from one anvil manufacturer to another. For instance, some have thick enough face plates that you can surface or blanchard grind through most of the bad stuff and have a near new face. Some are so thin that any grinding will ruin them.

Welding bad spots is usually a bad idea I believe. If its bad enough to really need that you're probably almost better to reface the entire anvil with hardfacing rod, and then grind it, but that's likely to be very expensive if you can't diy. A number of people have made anvils from mild plate and then hardfaced them to very good effect, but its a time consuming and difficult process.

Best bet may be to just leave it alone until you get it. An improper attempt at anvil repair can easily do a lot more damage than good.
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That makes sense.

Thanks again for the help. I really appreciate it.
 
To be clear, I know 3 bladesmith/blacksmiths with welded/repaired anvils. Id never have guessed they were repaired. I believe welding/repair is a viable option. It just needs to be researched properly. Iforgeiron's Anvil subforum is a great resource for info.
 
It's really hard to tell without pictures, but if the face has only some "dings" you should not have many problems. To forge a typical knife, including large blades, you only need a surface area of 4"X2"X6". Take a look and see if that's available on this anvil. The edges can be ground down to do specific things as needed or not used at all. Run a straight edge over the face and see what kind of dip it may have. My current anvil had a dip in the middle of 1/32" and I used it for years with no problem. Finally got a machine shop to surface grind level. Does help in final straightening. Having a welder lay down a total new surface is pretty scary unless they know exactly what they're doing.
 
Worst case, I've got an extra anvil or two kicking around in the shop in good shape we can work out a trade or something on Daniel.
 
Daniel, i had looked into this with an anvil that i have that is all cast iron. I was going to have the face milled off and have a plate of 1045 welded to it. I am pretty sure i could sweet talk my dad into running it through his HT furnace(HUGE monster oil quench ht assembly line furnace) at work, but was still on the fence. I ended up getting a PW anvil and am pretty happy with it. Now i need to build a nice forge lol. Hopefully it works out well, forging is great fun.
 
Welding on an anvil face is definitely very specific work.

If that guy has had a welding shop for 30 years, I'd imagine/hope he's a good welder... but that doesn't mean he'd know how to repair an anvil.

And hardfacing rod is for just that--- facing. I've seen a lot of cracked repairs where a large body of weld was built up with hardfacing rod. And there are different grades of hard facing rod.

If this guy is a good welder and you gave him a recipe for fixing an anvil then I'm sure he could do it just fine. The idea that he wants to drill holes in the face is really questionable to me though.

I'm with javand on this---- clean it up and try it. If after awhile you really want it repaired, THEN take it to a skilled welder with a printed, simple breakdown of anvil repair from anvilfire.

You're more likely to find a different anvil down the road than to take this one in for repair, IMHO. :)
 
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