New Anvils

A friend of mine has a Nimba, which I've had the pleasure of playing with, and it's an outstandindg anvil. I know others here have had similar success with them. The rebound is exceptional and the broad face with the double-horn works really well for knifemaking.
 
I had a Nimba Centurion and now have a Nimba Gladiator. I wouldn't trade it for anything.


YES, it's more than you need for blades... but every once in awhile I get a wild hair to blacksmith something. Plus, I was compensating ;)

The 120 lb Nimba would be a fantastic blade forging anvil.

Their short, wide, thick waste simply makes good sense for anvil geometry.

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While I'd love to have a Nimba too, I couldn't afford one. I went with a Euroanvil. Excellent quality, decent price, and John (the US distributor) is a great guy to deal with.

I have the 335lb Euroanvil and it's been great for me. I also have aspirations of doing some more blacksmithing type work, hence the heavier weight. For just bladesmithing even a small anvil will do quite nicely. The 175lb Euroanvils are quite nice as well, we have them in my blacksmith guild's school.

-d
 
Thanks for the feed back. I'm not familiar with Nimba, but will look into it. Who is the supplier for them? Anyone ever use the TFS (Delta) double horn? -Scott
 
Is the extra size in the gladiator worth it over the centurion? 99% of what I do is knives and wood working tools, also need to consider the semi portability aspects (would occasionally need to move it). How do the working faces compare? I see Nimba lists the total length, but not length minus the horn. -Scott
 
I use a 110# Mankel anvil. I love it, but I'd love it more if it were 140#. (Hindsight is a bitch sometimes! :D) Great anvil, great price IMHO. -Matt-
 
I forged on a Hercules 120 lb. anvil for 5 years before buying this one. It was nice, but the face was pretty damn ugly. The Triton (Nimba) is 120 lb. as well and would make an EXCELLENT anvil for bladework.

It's hard to justify the Gladiator for most folks. I had always wanted a big anvil... for one, it maximizes the hammer blow, but mostly, because they're cool. ;)

I wanted one with sharp edges as it helps with how I forge my blades.

I drove up to the Jaquas shop with my friend Mike Dagley to buy a new Centurion. I had bought one off Craig's list for $800, and it was in excellent shape, but had the edges radiused quite heavily. I figured if I was going to spend several hundred bucks on an anvil I was going to get one just the way I wanted it.

This Gladiator was actually a "second" as it had a tiny ding in the face, which you cannot even see anymore after working on it for a couple years. So the Jaquas sold me this Gladiator for a little over $1700.

Since I was 26 when I bought it, I figured I should have at least 40 years of bladesmithing left in me. That made it about $43 a year to have my dream anvil.

I couldn't pass that up! :D


BTW- If you're looking for any sort of portability, DEFINITELY, go with the 120 lb. Triton. I have been lifting weights since I was 14 and can deadlift about 545 lb. There's no way in hell I'd try to move the Gladiator by myself.

This is a pic my buddy took as a joke of me packing the Centurion in the shop. Anvils are not carry friendly! Be careful!!!

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Haha Great picture Nick! I agree that the gladiator is a heck of an anvil and admittedly part of what draws me to it is the size, I've always wanted a big one as well. i currently have a 118lb and a 145 lb Peter Wright and they are great to work on but I also teach bladesmithing classes at various places such as North House Folk School and was considering dedicating those both to students use. Thus if I was looking to buy a new anvil it would be for myself only (one of those dream things). I suppose at this time I am leaning towards the Centurion since it gives me the large face and sharp edges I have always wanted, yet is not so large that it takes a crew to move. Once it is in place though it won't be moving too much. I checked into both Peddinghaus and Kohlswa and the only bad thing on both of them is Kohlswa's back log is 6-8 months and with Peddinghaus nobody seems to know when they will be getting any more... -Scott
 
Speaking of huge, have any of you guys seen the pic of Steve Schwarzer on the ABS site? Balancing an anvil on one hand. By its horn.

Edit: I just noticed the explanation of that amazing feat on Steve's site... ;)
 
Nick, the flowers in your shop are very pretty. LOL.
 
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