# Where to get hold of an anvil?



## Woody2Shoes (7 Jun 2017)

I want to do some blacksmithing and would like to get myself an anvil - not easy to find - any suggestions? TIA W2S


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## NazNomad (7 Jun 2017)

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=anvil ... 20&bih=941


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## Phil Pascoe (7 Jun 2017)

Don't be tempted to buy cheap - I've a 5kg Draper one for jewelry - the top marks through sheet copper.


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## AJB Temple (7 Jun 2017)

There are usually loads of them on eBay. Prices all over the place. 

Depending on what you are doing, you may find it best to get one with a cast iron stand as well as a heavy anvil. Forge work needs heavy gear. I am on the hunt for one myself as it happens. But I am not willing to travel far.


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## sunnybob (7 Jun 2017)

ebay, dozens of them.


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## adidat (7 Jun 2017)

Lots on eBay, most require re mortgaging the house though!

Adidat


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## Lons (7 Jun 2017)

I have a couple of small ones but use a 600mm length of very heavy iron I beam for heavy stuff. keep it under cover outdoors and just dress off the top occasionally with a grinder, works well.


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## Phil Pascoe (7 Jun 2017)

A piece of scrap railway line works well if you have a source.


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## DiscoStu (7 Jun 2017)

Machine mart sell them cheaply. Not sure about the size of them or quality. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## LancsRick (7 Jun 2017)

Reclamation yards are a good place. It's worth putting a lean-to roof on your forge too, not just to protect it but to keep the weather off to an extent.


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## marcros (7 Jun 2017)

phil.p":1bwzk3aq said:


> Don't be tempted to buy cheap - I've a 5kg Draper one for jewelry - the top marks through sheet copper.



The Rutland's one is equally as soft.


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## bourbon (8 Jun 2017)

https://www.anvils.co.uk/about-us.html
you won't need to fettle them then. And get a turning hammer and you won't mark your work too much. Do you want a gas furnace or coal?


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## Jacob (8 Jun 2017)

ebay. I sold a nice old one recently for £100. Bargain.


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## Phil Pascoe (8 Jun 2017)

bourbon":t702rjcg said:


> https://www.anvils.co.uk/about-us.html
> you won't need to fettle them then. And get a turning hammer and you won't mark your work too much. Do you want a gas furnace or coal?



You'd probably need to use them professionally to justify the cost.


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## Hitch (8 Jun 2017)

A 5kg anvil isn't much good for forge work, you'd want at least 10x that... unless you are doing very delicate work.


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## Phil Pascoe (8 Jun 2017)

I don't think anyone was suggesting it.


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## heimlaga (26 Jun 2017)

If you are a good scrounger and repairman a decent set of blacksmith's tools do not need to cost a fortune.

I paid 20 euros for my 40 kg Lokomo anvil at a local scrapyard. 
The edges were totally destroyed to the point that the anvil would have been useless for anything but very rough work but I preheated the anvil to 150 degrees celsius using a blow torch and built up new edges with my stick welder and some 3,2 mm Elga Selectark HB61R electrodes. Then I ground the built up areas to shape with a big angle grinder.
I learned this repair method from an old blacksmith. He said that theese repairs aren't as strong as the original anvil was but they are strong enough to last a decade or more of professional use and then the same anvil can be repaired again and again infinitely using the same method. A decade of professional use equals a couple of centuries of hobby use. 
Before this anvil I had a smaller one on which I had resurfaced the entire top with theese hard welding rods. My uncle bought it from me and he still uses it occasionally. I think I paid 35 euros for it when I bought it from a local antiques dealer.

Keep looking and keep asking and one day you will find a cheap yet good secondhand anvil.

Cheap new anvils from china are made from cast iron with no hard top. This means that they get dented by every hammer blow and after a while they start cracking just like cast iron always does when beaten with a hammer. It is a soft and brittle material after all. Totally unsuitable for making anvils. Of cause they are impossible to repair.

The anvil stand doesn't have to be made from cast iron. Around here the traditional anvil stand is just a suitable piece of a big tree trunk. The bigger the better. Mine is around 40 or 45 cm in diametre. 
I suppose the Brits started using cast iron stands when they ran out of big trees. 

My portable forge didn't cost much either. 
I got it for free from an aquintance who said it was beyond repair. It had stood indide a cow shed with a leaky roof that collapsed on top of the forge some 50 years ago and rotted away so when I first saw the forge it was standing under a birch tree on the edge of a field where to cow shed had once been. 
Getting it apart without further damage was the hardest bit but once that was accomplished I could straighten the frame and the crankshaft and rivet on a new top plate and make a new shaft for the blower and put everything back together with a new drive belt. 

Keep going!


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