Anvil from bloom.

[owen bush 293]

I have a lot of bloom and bloom pieces from various smelts . more than I will make into blades.

I am thinking as a good long project that I will start compacting them together in order to make an anvil from them .

my thoughts are to make up one inch thick plates and then store them to assemble later .

My thoughts are that the anvil base and core could easily be from first compaction bloom and that I should process the material more as I get closer to the face. and finally face it with a carburises bloom steel face .

So what shaped anvil would you make from bloom ? weight 50 lb +-

[Jesus Hernandez 34]

That sounds like a really cool project.

How's this with a 4x4" or 5x5" face?

[John Page 95]

How about a German hornless anvil? I've always love the shape of these...

With or without the face

 

John

[kevin hopkins 10]

well if you can go with a face on your anvil why not

[ZebDeming 4]

Heres a link to an ebay auction with a very cool looking stump anvil http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=110984925286

 

Sounds like a pretty cool project, can't wait to see it progress

 

Zeb

[Richard Furrer 56]

I know Darrell Markewitz has done this. He may chime in here. I can not locate the picture I have of the anvil he made from bloom. He has done several form modern materials as well.

 

Since you do the Anglo-Saxon reenactment I suggest a normal stump anvil with a square flat face.

 

Ric

[Jason Mather 0]

I'm with Ric, a simple square stump anvil is the way to go.

[Doug Lester 404]

It should have an ugly face on it. Definitely an ugly face.

 

Doug

[Richard Furrer 56]

It should have an ugly face on it. Definitely an ugly face.

 

Doug

 

Doug,

I have no idea why Owen would put MY face on the side of his anvil, but if he wants to....

Ric

[Jan Ysselstein 102]

Owen,

I am glad you are giving the iron an out by storing it in plate form for a long time....once it is in the anvil form it will become anonymous and never have a chance to shine.

 

Jan

Edited January 29, 2013 by Jan Ysselstein

[owen bush 293]

Owen,

I am glad you are giving the iron an out by storing it in plate form for a long time....once it is in the anvil form it will become anonymous and never not have a chance to shine.

 

Jan

 

I think making an anvil is a chance for the material to actually find it's self a place doing something real and a way to incorporate material form all our different smelts. in many ways an anvil is as iconic as a sword.

there is also the chicken and egg element to it all.

[Mark Green 18]

I made a 31/2 in. sq. x about 6 in. long stump anvil from bloom last fall. It was a 3 fold /1 stack billet. When I was forming the pointy end, it split on me. So I squished it into a bar again, and haven't gotten back to it.

Soon.

 

I may make it a bit bigger. I have two 9.5 lb bloom halves that are very solid already. Maybe I will just square one of those up, and see how it will do???

 

Or, I have about 50 lbs of very solid bits and pieces. Maybe just hearth smelt them into a big lump, and play from there.

 

Mark

[Hannes N. 0]

Very nice project! Here is a picture of a roman anvil from Augusta Raurica, a roman site some miles west of my place... I considered to copy that one some time ago, but havent yet found time to do it...

 

[owen bush 293]

that is a great image . do you have any dimensions for it?

[Hannes N. 0]

Height is 23cm, weight is around 35kg according to the documentation I have. As Ive said, I didnt follow that project any further, but I can try to get more detailed information for you, there must be more measurements in the archaeologic literature... Havent made it to the museum yet, to inspect the anvil personally...

[Mark Green 18]

Wow, that is a big chunk of iron.

If it is 23 cm tall. It looks to be the same with sq. at the top, as it is tall. So, likely a 23cm square at top, maybe a 20 cm sq at the bottom, inset into a stump. Very nice.
That would take 3-4 whole blooms for me to make. It looks like a nice one though.

Thanks for sharing, Hannes.

 

Mark

[owen bush 293]

wow thats a 200lb lump.

I really like the convex face.

[A Bodley 0]

Is this the earliest pritchel hole?

[Hannes N. 0]

The hole is 16mm in diameter and is continued into a channel on the outer surface of the anvil. I've seen that also on other roman anvils. Probably for punching holes, is that what you call a pritchel hole?

Edited February 1, 2013 by Hannes N.

[Hannes N. 0]

There was an auction in Munich in 2011, where they sold among other things also roman blacksmithing tools. The anvil is smaller but of similar shape, it also shows how the base of such anvils look... does not have a hole though.

Here is the link to the former auction: http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hhm63.pl?f=NR_LOT&c=1568&t=temartic_G_D&db=kat63_g.txt

[Mark Green 18]

WOW! It looked like every one of those wonderful artifacts had been buffed clean. I love the locking mechanism on the broken tongues.

I like that style anvil. I think I will try to make one like that, of bloom. Much less chance of splitting the bottom point.

I think the mesurments on the first one Hannes posted is more like a 15 cm sq face, at 23cm length.

 

I think I will try for a 10cm face, with about 20+cm length. Maybe 30ish lbs 14kg?

Isn't 35kg 77 lbs?

 

Mark

[Lee Sauder 19]

Hey Owen-,

Here's another one. This was a gift from Tom Joyce- he bought it as an "African anvil currency", But I figured that just means anvil! I stuck it in a stump and used it a time or two.

 

 

It's forged right from bloom, the divots you can see are pretty obviously diagnostic when you look close. The fattest diameter is 9 cm, the diameter at the top is 6.5 cm. What you can see is 24 cm tall, the overall length including what's buried in the block is about 33 cm.

 

This shape is also really close to a lot of african hammers- matbe it functioned as a sledge hammer as well. Or maybe it really was just money, I don't know.

 

Years ago Michael McCarthy and I forged a viking style anvil from bloom for Darrel Markewitz at one of our smelting parties. But it was late and we were drinking. It could have been a great or awful little anvil, I don't remember!

Edited February 2, 2013 by Lee Sauder

[Darrell @ warehamforge.ca 2]

Lee said:

 

 

Years ago Michael McCarthy and I forged a viking style anvil from bloom for Darrel Markewitz at one of our smelting parties. But it was late and we were drinking. It could have been a great or awful little anvil, I don't remember!

 

 

Safe to say that although I was involved in that, at best Lee and Mike more were humouring me than me really being all that useful. I think it was the first time I had ever worked as a striker for more than a few minutes, and certainly never with people who really *knew* what they were doing!

 

The event was Early Iron 3, 2006, at Peter's Valley Craft School. The smelt was on the last day of the event, as most of the participants were packing up and leaving.

The furnace was one of the 'Flue Tyle' teaching units developed by Mike, Lee and Skip Williams. Dick Sargent and I ran the smelt itself. We used 45 kg of that wonderful 'Lexington Brown' rock ore Lee is blessed with, using about 60kg of charcoal.

The resulting bloom is described in my notes as 'a nice solid bloom'. We did not have any means of weighing the results. The mass was cut into half, one half again divided. The anvil we made up was made from one of the quarters.

(I certainly missed the 'drinking' part, being consumed in the smelt itself. This might have been the source of a certain 'enthusiasm' on the part of Lee and Mike that evening? Honestly, I was already pretty beat!)

 

What my original notes say:

 

 

The finished object is rough cube 3 inches (7.5 cm) on a side. Finished
weight is almost exactly 2 kg (roughly 4 1/2 lbs). It tapers
slightly to the base (to permit solid mounting in a wooden stub
latter). One of the sides shows fracturing, but it was decided to leave
this crack as is rather than weld it shut. This was done to accent the
nature and origin of the source material. At this point the surface is
just hammer flattened. I have not decided if I will actually
further smooth or polish the face. As it is the anvil will certainly
serve its function. Right now the remaining three faces have two
differing rough radius curves and one section that is relatively sharp.
Again these edges could be dressed to even them up, but they will
certainly prove functional. Lee's estimate of the relative carbon
content (based on his extensive experience forging out blooms) is that
this iron is some place between a 'pure' wrought iron and a modern mild
steel in carbon (say equivalent to a 1010 material).

 

Through some kind of weird syncronisity , I'm actually working up some notes on early North European / Viking Age smithing tools and anvils right now. One artifact set from Telemark in Norway for comparision (sorry, no measurements dug out yet, but comparing the other tools should give you an idea)

[Mark Green 18]

Hi Gang,

 

So while I had the bloom processing forge heated up, testing the wood smelt bloom, I decided to try my hand at a anvil from bloom thingy.

 

I picked out a 8lb bloom half.

 

 

Placed it in the forge for the long soak. Then started working it in the press.

 

 

It was a pretty nice piece of bloom, and welded up pretty fast.

 

 

Still needs a bit of work, but the rain was starting. Here it is with my AS hammer. The anvil came in at 4lbs. It has a 5cm sq. face, and is 15cm long. Not sure yet if I will pointy up the stump end of just kinda finish out the wedge. I have a feeling that would act as a stump splitting awl. I may just square it off.

 

 

 

Mark

 

 

Edited February 3, 2013 by Mark Green

[Hannes N. 0]

Mark, my congrats, that little anvil looks really nice - very clean steel! ...and it will do for many smaller forgings, as knifeblades and so on... good for travelling! Always have a hammer and anvil with you, never know if you will need it. Id shape the base like that, so you can stick it into every piece of wood that is at hand. And even such a small anvil has a lot of "power" if the wooden stump below is heavy enough, it only gets hot very quickly...: