Recycling is your friend.

He must love Television Without Pity.

And I thought owning 4 anvils was a sign of addiction.

Anvils....gotta catch em' all!

Old Machelm had a farm ee-eye-ee-eye-oh

and on this farm he had some anvils

ee-eye-ee-eye-oh

with an anvil here and an anvil there....

How many of them blew into his backyard last night from the storms?

/clang! clang!
//it's raining anvils! thank you jebus!

This guy is secretive enough about the security of his anvils to be concerned about divulging his location, but not enough to stop him from divulging that his name is "Corky Helms" and he lives in rural Illinois.

Hmmm.

Makes me think of all the times I used to pick up my ex-wife's purse, and ask her, "What the hell do you GOT in here, your anvil collection?!"

I always thought I was just being a smartass...

This man is guilty of creating an "Excess of Anvil". He should be immediately wiretapped and provisions for his deportation and/or torture should quickly follow.

Does he really think someone is going to come and steal 700 anvils? I mean, I've made it this far in life without having to use an anvil once....

So, is this guy part of the "Axis of Anvil?"

Downstate collector steels himself for more anvils

One question, why is this writer not touring the IMPROV circuit.

I've always wanted an anvil. Haven't needed one yet though.

cheap anvils from harborfreight. They mostly are not GOOD anvils, though. But they usually have "desktop" models for cheap enough.

Now that google maps has latlong, I am very surprised that more people have not been smote to death for behaving too looney, too tooney.

Itching to see a lap anvil, which pioneering folks used while traveling?

My gf has one of those. I hit it with my crotch hammer. Itching usually isn't a good sign, though.

This guy is definitely the king of Anvilania.

/repeat what I just said

Awesome headline. That is all.

An-vil-a-ni-aaaaaaaa
 An-vil-a-ni-aaaaaaa
Anvil-aaaaa-_aaaaaaa-aaaaaa-ni-aaaaa

Wait until he teams up with this guy:

Odd. You'd think that oen nce thing about choosing to collect anvils would be that, by their very nature, they'd be inherently difficult to steal.

I would expect a theif would be far more likely to steal butterflies, stamps, feathers, or of course a wonderful helium balloon collection, nice because you can store it on the ceiling.

And, even if they do get stolen, it's a piece of cake to point out the one in the police lineup with the severe hernia.

Meep Meep!

/high fives Submitter for headline.

GIS first-page hit for "anvil"--



Sure, what the hell.

Holy Tom Brady!

Has this guy never heard of matchbook covers?

Clark Kent:
Does he really think someone is going to come and steal 700 anvils? I mean, I've made it this far in life without having to use an anvil once....

Actually, it's a legit concern. A good anvil is very difficult to get your hands on, and you either have to scour farm shows and/or flea markets or pay out the nose for a quality new anvil. They are stupid expensive, mainly because of the low demand and exacting metallurgy.

The only anvil I could get was a cheap Chinease cast-iron anvil, which is useless for blacksmithing. But it was a lot of mass (good) so I bolted a 1" thick plate of high-carbon plate to the top, and it does okay. I tend more often to use a large piece of quality steel that used to be part of a block mold and now is my primary anvil.

I got my best friend an anvil for a wedding present-- Harbor Freight started selling an actual (fairly crappy but still steel) Russian steel anvil, so I picked one up, faced the top off more presicely, reground the horn (it comes cast and kinda crappy) and welded his name on the side in 304-L stainless steel. Repainted everything (except the stainless and the top/horn, which I polished) and drove it 1000 miles to his wedding. He uses it almost daily, and has repeatedly told me that it's the best thing he got.

I'm predjudiced, since I come from a long line of metalworkers, but a good anvil is a beautiful thing. I got to use my uncle's 150# antique, and it was almost a religious experience-- to hammer something and be able to transfer all the energy of your swing into exactly where you want it. He's got a 300# anvil from a steel mill that I've been angling for for years.

If you're hard-core into blacksmithing, though, I would recommend an old Little Giant power hammer. They rock.

He doesn't have The anvil.

Clavis, we must keep them apart, or they will become unstoppable.

Zylon

Damn, check out the anvils on her.
I wouldn't mind forging a relationship there.
I'd hammer that, and sparks would fly. (2x bonus!)
I'd like to make her my Mrs. Smith.

Yeah, I'm out.

I *heart* Wyle Coyote

Zerk Schrader

Thanks, I figured there was more to the things than just *being an anvil*. I appreciated the collection before your little lesson. Now I understand it more. If I ever come across one (garage sales, flea markets, etc) what is a fair price? Obviously weight and quality vary but I'm thinking a couple hundred bucks isn't out of line.

/ugh, one more thing I know a little bit about
//enough to tell a good one from a bad one
///my wife hates that
////we're adding on a room.......

Submitter might be playing a little fast and loose with the 'interesting' tag...

Zerk Schrader

Repainted everything (except the stainless and the top/horn, which I polished) and drove it 1000 miles to his wedding.

What kind of mileage does one get from an anvil? :-)

Seriously, that sounds like a lot of work (in a good way) and a nice gift.

Acme has approved of this headline submitter.

MakeMeBad
I *heart* Wyle Coyote

But not enough to spell his name correctly?

Woo-hoo, AMonkey'sUncle, you must have been a regular reader of the Enterprise recaps there, eh?

PETA is investigating the story.

Super Genius.

Oh, he bought them all on sale at ACME.

Photoshop of mine from a while back

Well, I'm sure that nobody is still reading this thread, but I figured I might as well respond anyway.

offacue:

It varies a lot. I've been led to beleive that the average flea market find in crappy shape and unknown steel should be around 1-2$ per pound. The Russian one I got at harbor freight I think was around $100 or so, and it's a 110lb. anvil. It'll do what you need done, but be careful you don't get one of the cast iron ones they also sell occasionally-- those are painted silver rather than black, and are wider. They're not good for much.

Nicer used anvils will certainly bring a couple hundred, and I can't remember how much the really good ones were when I priced them-- I think I blacked out for a minute when I looked. There's several different types, as well-- you probably want the London-style (the highest of the anvils those kids are throwing). It's the most useful for general use. The bottom one is a double horn for specialized stuff (can't remember what-- I'm far from being an expert, more a tinkerer) and the wierd looking middle one is a homemade anvil. They're actually pretty common, since good anvils are hard to find. I'd avoid them, since you don't know what somebody did to make it. Most of the homemades are made of old railroad track, which works okay.

A lot of the older nice anvils will have odd marks on the side, like "1-2-3" This isn't pounds, but hundredweight-- which is 112 pounds. First number is hundredweight, then quarters of a hundredweight, then the third is plain pounds. a 1-2-3 is 171 pounds. Wierd, huh? Weird is good.

Of course, then you have to get a stand for it, which is a headache all in itself. Then hammers. And tongs. And a forge. My equipment is the absolute bare minumum to do anything (and I'm not very good at it) mainly because of space. When I have a bigger shop, I will go crazy-- my uncle has about two hundred hammers and tongs, and I plan on defeating him.

Give an anvil a little tap with a small hammer-- it should bounce back nicely, like you're not actually hurting the anvil. It should also make a rather pleasant sound. Then look at the very edges of the face. They should be unbroken and have a nice consistent edge. Little chips off the edge denote steel that is too brittle (a little chip from badly tempered or too high carbon steel will go into you really far. Very painful) while big dents usually mean it's a bit soft. Concave faces can mean either it's soft, or it's been used a lot, so sometimes you can't tell with that.

There are some good books out there-- "The Art of Blacksmithing" by Alex W. Bealer is a good intro, but look at old book shops and you can find all manner of goodness. I'll stop rambling now, since the thread is probably dead anyway.

Englebert Slaptyback:

Well, anvils usually average twenty rods to the hogshead of anthracite, so milage was okay, I guess.

I appreciate you thinking it was a nice gift. That actually put me in a better mood. It was work, but fun. I think a gift means more if you put some time into it rather than just blow some money on a designer sweater or something. And I wanted it to be useful.

Okay, on a whim, I checked McMaster-Kerr (a usually reasonable industrial supply catalogue) and they want a giant steaming pile of money for an anvil-- no way go to them.

They want $302 for an 85# cast iron anvil, and freakin' $954 for a cast steel 100#. That's crazy talk. Crazy! Three hundred bucks would probably get me a quite nice old forged steel anvil. Man, that's bonkers.

Here's a review of the Russian one-- http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/ru_top_index.htm
I think it's fine if you're not a blacksmith snob and grind it like this guy did (same as I did).

Ridgid apparently has a quite nice forged anvil, but God knows how much they are.

Took me years to get my paws on a good anvil, and this guy ain't even a smith! That's like Michael Jackson hoarding phone numbers of hot single women, fergawdssake.

I've spent almost every saturday morning from April through October for the last six years combing Milwaukee for old tools, and I've only run across *one* anvil...with a rumored second one gathering dust in that patternmaker's widow's barn full o' tools that she ain't sellin' yet. They're evidently not all that common in cities.

This mailing list I read sometimes (archive at http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~cswingle/archive/ , too lazy to use HTML tonight) tells me that $1/lb for an old anvil is the price you used to find them for about 5 years ago, so a good one for that price should be snapped up. They also say that it's not unheard of to use bondo to disguise damage on anvils, so yes, definitely beat on it before buying...