Grizzly anvils?

They're cast iron; I don't think the face would stay flat/smooth very long if you forged steel on it. Maybe you could mount a hardened steel plate to the face?
 
Before trying to forge anything on it Something like a chunk of fork lift fork on the top would help, can't see where it would be worth the trouble.
Ken
 
Grizzly anvils are just ASOs. (Anvil Shaped Object.) The face will definitely mar and dent easily, there will be no rebound of the hammer to speak of, and I would not recommend one for any actual "anvil type" use. Maybe as an anchor or a glue press. Like James Terrio said, you would be better off just using a piece of forklift tine. You could embed a 10"-20" piece end up in a 5-gal bucket like Tim Lively, he says it works great and his knives reflect that statement...
 
yea, there was a grizz in my high school metal tech class. as you can imagine, any anvil in that environment would be abused (to say the least) but compared to the steel anvil there, it did not hold its own very well. as far as a decent buy cheap anvil goes, i bought one from harbor freight (not the 55lb cast iron one made by central forge. i forget the weight but its larger and cast Russian steel) and its not bad. doesnt dent easily. the horn is ugly as sin, i built it up and extended it by arc welding some round stock on and filling it in. to pick one out go grab a ball pein hammer from the hammer isle and tap the sides. the first one i checked had a big void in the casting filled with bondo and painted over...
on second thought, it may be more trouble than its worth...
 
I have Grizzly 24 lb anvil (more ASO than anvil as mentioned above). It is very soft. I leave plenty of dents on it when I hummer 416 pins into the bolster, I would not even try forging on it. Look at craigslist and buy a used one, sometimes people sell good anvils there at very decent price, you will also save on shipping.
 
My son is a welder. He hard faced a 24 pound Grizzly anvil and a 55 pound Harbor Freight anvil. It made all the difference in the world. Before he did that both of those anvil were terrible! I also have a 24 inch piece of RR track. It's a very good anvil.
 
Blade Magazine used to run a picture on the last page of a Japanese bladesmith at work on an anvil that is simply a good-sized hunk of square stock, maybe 4" x 4" or so sticking straight up out of a stump. This is a traditional knife anvil in other cultures, as well, I believe. You could achieve the same mass under your hammer, which is what matters, with a hunk of RR track (which unlike the Grizzly POS is high carbon) mounted vertically, and save the money.
 
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