anvil mutilation .... part 2 | The Tools of the Trade | Forum

Heres a modification that may be quite useful if you've got a big enough anvil and don't keep it it a humidity controlled, dust filtered museum/forge/plastic bubble , golly gosh it actually involves ... dare I say it ... modifying a sacred object. Sacriledge to some but WTF

I'm not a fan of cone mandrel other than for making hoops. They are ok when "tapping" downwards but swinging a hammer in a horizontal arc just plain feels wrong. It would be nice to have a much larger radius horn, say upto 30" diameter. Kinda impractical though.

What I've done is get a range of 2" thick disc of diamters from 6" to 12" profiled. I've drilled and tapped an M16 (5/8) thread into the anvil heel and bolt up these disc to this. I'm not for one minute suggesting heavy forging on these but the mass in the disc does make them quite effective for shaping and light forging.

I could have gripped them in a vise but they would be at an inconvenient height and the jaws get in the way, essentially the anvil is just something substantial to mount to at a convenient height, it's inertia doesn't come into play other than as a counterbalance to the blows. Mounting it to the heel allows plenty of clear space all around.

The big block in the photo is actually based around a 12" "square" with four different radius arcs for the sides ranging from 15" diameter to 30" diameter. The smaller block is the similar but with radiuses from 8" to 12" For the curvilinear work I do these are quite a useful shaping block. A quick loosening of the bolt and you can spin them round to another radius curve.

As I said in anvil mutilation part 1, I know it weakens this area of the heel but who on earth pounds on this bit?

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