Pre heating my anvil?

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Grayzer86

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Jan 15, 2012
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This may be a stupid question but I have read before that when forging in the cold it can be a good idea to preheat the anvil some. I have heard that people will heat some steel and set it on the face of the anvil to warm it so it doesn't draw heat from the work as fast. It just seems to me that the 50 or 100 degree change if even possible would be pretty much moot when we are talking temps measured in thousands of degrees here. The reason I ask is that my shop is not insulated yet and is not heated at all until the forge fires up. This means my anvil will be at ambient temp averaging around -30C. I have been wondering if this is an issue since I just started forging this spring and have never dealt with this. As an example, last Saturday Saskatchewan was the coldest place on earth hitting a low, factoring in wind chill, of -59.8C. For my southern friends that -75F.
 
Heating it to keep your work piece warm is, as you suspect, futile. If you heat it enough to do that, you've ruined the face (or "whole thing" if it's cast).

Heating it to keep the anvil from breaking if it's -30c is a REALLY good idea! The face, especially, gets quite a lot more brittle.
It should help minimize chipping on the face, though actually breaking an anvil is generally something that happens when someone gets really happy with a sledge when it's cold out.

PS. Wear a leather apron. Chips can be deadly.

PPS. Proper technique is much more important. If you can watch an experienced smith working, you may notice that he'll (she'll) sort of rock the work piece up off the anvil face between blows, or after a series of blows. Doesn't matter what the ambient temp is, that anvil is sucking heat out of your work. This makes a huge difference, though it takes a bit to get the hang of.
Even if your main interest is blades, I encourage you to find your local blacksmithing organization and hang out- forging is a whole world unto itself, and some of the most helpful techniques aren't things you'd necessarily think of on your own. You'll learn lots of things that apply to bladesmithing by watching a good blacksmith, even if he has no interest in knives.
 
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It does make a difference if you are forging thin right from the get-go. Normally, by the time I rough forge several blanks, the face of the anvil is what it would be during the warmer months of the year, anyway. Remember... heat travels up... so if you really intend on preheating your anvil, throw at torch at its base. I don't think it's an issue though. The big question is... how do you keep your bucket from freezing? I use RV waterline antifreeze.
 
Thanks for the info guys. Rick, if by bucket you mean my water pail for cooling punches etc, I can't keep it from freezing so I drag out a new pail of water from the house, use it, and dump it out when I am done. It's not great but it works until I can get the heat on in there. We just bought this house and the other half wanted a new kitchen and bathroom, I wanted the garage insulated and heated, so we compromised and did what she wanted lol.
 
Don't know if it would work since I don't have to deal with such severe temps here but maybe you could mount a heat gun or two to your anvil stand and just have a steady stream of hot air keeping your anvil warm?
 
Saw some guys mention using a electric iron, just a cheapo. Plug it in set it on top and go do your thing.

Heard some of the guys use cattle water tank heaters. the ones you use for the water troughs for cows and what not. Keeps the bucket thawed. Funny story when I was a kid we took some horses to WY, my dad thinking he would help out watered the cows and horses. Well lets just say by that afternoon they had about two inches of space on top of the troughs for the better part of winter.
 
Quint... those bucket heaters eat up a lot of power if you leave them in overnight. I use them to preheat my quench tank, now.:thumbup: RV waterline anti-freeze is non-toxic and will not let your water get past the slush phase... then you can use a bucket heater to melt the slush if you want.

As for the anvil... I think if you are using it properly(hitting the hot steel, instead of the anvil face) you shouldn't have to worry about extreme cold embrittlement.
 
Pre-heating the anvil was something smiths had to deal in the days when shops were open and unheated at night ( and barely heated in the day). It was especially important for those forging thin shapes, like folder blades.
It really wasn't to protect the anvil as much as it was to allow the thin metal to remain at forgeable heat for more than one stroke of the hammer.
The methods I have heard were to heat a large block/slab of iron in the coal fire while getting things ready for the day's work, and then setting the hot block on the anvil. The block needed to be big enough to transfer its heat to the mass of the anvil. Some had handles welded to them. You wanted it good and hot, but not red-hot. Once you were ready to start forging, the block was set aside and the forging work would keep the anvil warm.

I certainly wouldn't start pounding away on a -30F anvil, but in normal temps, the anvil will warm up quickly with normal size hot work. Start by forging down some heavy stock and then switch to the thin work when you and the anvil are both warmed up.

I suppose if you lived in Saskatchewan it might be a good idea to wrap a flexible heater cord ( like used for water tanks and pipes) around the anvil and then wrap the anvil in a water heater blanket/jacket overnight to keep it a few degrees above 0C/30F. The insulating blanket would be necessary, as the low wattage heater would not be sufficient alone to heat the anvil's mass without it.
Just wrapping the anvil at the end of the day's forging in a water heater jacket and using some bungees to keep it snug may be enough to hold some warmth overnight.
 
Thanks for the info Stacey. Most of my forging starts out as bar stock and is just forged to shape and bevels forged in, so it's not like I would be smashing away at the anvil reducing large stock down. The largest hammer I typically use on blades is about 2lbs and occasionally a 3 or so for heavy work so not like I am having a striker swing a sledge. I am not very good yet so I used a light touch so I don't make mistakes that are hard to fix. If it makes a difference both are real anvils and reasonably large so i would not be doing any heavy work on a small horn or tail. Currently I have. 140lb peter wright and a 170lb Mousehole.
 
bladsmth said:
The methods I have heard were to heat a large block/slab of iron in the coal fire while getting things ready for the day's work, and then setting the hot block on the anvil. The block needed to be big enough to transfer its heat to the mass of the anvil.
Click to expand...

That ^^^ is pretty much what I do on cold days. I keep a slab of old scrap steel, about 5 lbs and still nice and flat, just above the forge door as it warms up. By the forge is at temp the steel plate is good and hot and ready to sit on the anvil face for a bit. This just takes the chill out of the anvil and, as Stacy states, makes thin forging(any forging really) a lot easier right off the bat.

-Peter
 
I once watched Paul Champagne forge a sword blade. After each hammer blow, he picked the blade up off the anvil (just a little bit). Then, as his hammer was coming back down, he would put the blade back onto the anvil. That was how he prevented that anvil from sucking all the heat out of his blade.

He also had a brush to put water on the face of the anvil and a bucket to dip the face of his hammer. When he laid the hot blade on the wet anvil, the water would turn to steam and blow the scale off of his blade. That way, he wasn't hammering scale into the blade and didn't have to wire brush the scale off.

This is a picture I found on the web from the Ashokan Sword Seminar in 2000 (I don't know who took it). You will note the wet anvil and the bucket to dip the hammer.
smltng2.jpg

I tried both of these techniques, and they seem to work well. The blade picking up technique wasn't as hard to do as it might seem, since you only lift it a bit.
 
Chris... Wally Hayes taught me both of those techniques. Uri Hofi also has a method, where he keeps the hot portion off the anvil until the hammer strike.
 
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