New eBay anvil

[Mason Simonet 54]

Hey guys. first off I would like to say I'm not in the market for an anvil, I just found this interesting 

so the other day I found this 66 pound anvil on eBay that claimed it was steel, for only 139 bucks! At first glance I thounght it was just another ASO scam, but the more I looked into it I had second thoughts. 

Here's a pic and the link to eBay.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/Round-Horn

as you can see there is a review stating that it is cast 1045 but the hardening is a little spotty and there are some pits in the face, but overall he finds it a good deal. He also says that it is not Forged steel but we already knew that...

They sell very similar anvils at princess auto and Woodward fab

I am sure these 2 are steel but they are also much more expensive.

I even messaged the seller to confirm that it is steel and not cast iron. he responded, which scammers usually do not do.

at this point I was for sure it was steel. 

BUT... I found the anvil on amazon with 4 reviews 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d

yall can see the reviews for yourself but I would like to point out that in the q&a they believe it has a 3/8 steel plate with cast iron base.

let me know what y'all think about this... it could be the next harbor freight Russian anvil!  

Thanks!

[Zeb Camper 787]

I would say the price is too good to be true. It looks cheap even in the pictures. Just judging by it's dark gray color on top, the reviews on it, and the photos on amazon. My buddy and I both started blacksmithing back in high school, I had a length of railroad track that had been plasma cut to shape, and a pair of vice grips and he had a hammer. We made some pretty cool stuff with railroad spikes and a firepit. We took turns waving a piece of plywood to fan the flames. I digress, he bought a cheap cast iron anvil from harbor freight and we used it maybe once and it was very banged up and dented after that. I still have my railroad track though. It has held up quite well to my sloppy hammer work, and heavy hand.  It's the only anvil I own. Gets the job done I suppose. I would suggest you pass on this. but, if you decide to buy it; please let us know if it's quality. I'm on the lookout for a new anvil myself

[Zeb Camper 787]

I just re-read this, sorry  I missed the part where you said your not in the market for it Hopefully someone who might know something about it will enlighten us 

[Alan Longmire 3,682]

Cheap crap.  Run don't walk away!  If you read the Amazon reviews it's obvious none of them have any idea what they're talking about ( the rubber-handled hammer listed as "often bought together" is a flaming arrow of a clue).  The first review you linked saying it's C45 is better, but still suspect.  The Chinese tool industry has no qualms about mislabelling stuff they export if they think that will make it sell better.  All Chinese industry, for that matter.  Remember the melamine incident in pet food and powdered milk a few years back?  

Anyway, it's cast not forged, there is zero chance of it having a steel plate face, and there is 0.0001% chance it's not just plain old cast iron of the lowest possible quality.  In other words, firmly in the Anvil-Shaped Object category, but apparently aimed at the European/Latin American market since it is an Italian/Spanish shape.  The death penalty should apply to purveyors of this type of garbage.

[Doug Lester 400]

Even if it is made from a good steel, and I'll go with Alan's opinion that it's not, most of the mass is not under where you need it to forge blades.  Just a guestimate that at 66 lbs over half of the weight is in the horn and the heal of the anvil.  You would wear yourself out trying to forge a blade on that, though I would have to admit that smaller anvils have been used.

Doug

[Mason Simonet 54]

Yea it's only about 6 inches tall, so with the bridge that would only be about 4 inches of mass. Thanks for the input guys.

[Justinschmidt 3]

This must be the thread Geoff was referring too. Thanks for the heads up gentleman. My va disability is pretty lo e and 150 would suck to blow on a paper weight 

[Gary Mulkey 1,445]

I've often wondered about how some foreign countries can make & sell steel items so  cheaply.  It's not just cheap labor but they have to have a cheap source of  materials.  Since it is cheaper to recycle steel than to make it,  I've often wondered if some of the items aren't made from the obsolete naval vessels that we give to  them for nothing.    That anvil just might be a WW1 battleship.

[Wes Detrick 490]

On 12/28/2017 at 6:27 AM, Gary Mulkey said:

I've often wondered about how some foreign countries can make & sell steel items so  cheaply.  It's not just cheap labor but they have to have a cheap source of  materials.  Since it is cheaper to recycle steel than to make it,  I've often wondered if some of the items aren't made from the obsolete naval vessels that we give to  them for nothing.    That anvil just might be a WW1 battleship.

At least speaking for China, they get steel so cheaply is because we send so much of it to them.  LOTS of our steel recycling happens in China; so much so that a few months ago China finally asked the US to stop sending our junk to them.  I live and work very near one of the deep water ports of Puget Sound and I know of a couple of large steel scrap yards right on the water that I am sure ship out their scrap.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Wes Detrick

[Justinschmidt 3]

Think it's actually steel?? 

[Alan Longmire 3,682]

8 hours ago, Justinschmidt said:

Think it's actually steel?? 

Only in the same way a cheap hot dog is actually meat. 

I hadn't heard China asked us to stop sending scrap metal.  All the yards around here are still doing a booming business under the Omnisource monopoly, and all do not allow people to scrounge around.    But you're on the front lines of export, so you ought to know!  We're still sending them our top quality metallurgical coal by the mile-long trainload.

[Jerrod Miller 593]

As far as I can tell from the examples I have seen (which is quite a few), industrial steel castings coming from China have 1 of 3 catastrophic (i.e. scrap the part severity) issues about 50% of the time.  And usually it is just one of the three, very seldom 2 or all 3.  1) Bad dimensional tolerance, 2) bad physical quality (porosity, inclusions, burn-on, just plain ugly, etc.), or 3) bad chemistry or heat treat.  Of the 3, chemistry issues have been the most rare.  In fact, it has often been some of the cleanest chemistries I've seen (very low tramp elements).  I just cut up a part this week for analysis and it was a clean 1525, surface finish was a bit rough, hardness indicated that the part was normalized well, and a large shrink defect right in the middle of where I happened to cut.  The biggest problem we have run into with getting product from China (sometimes we are forced to sub-contract work overseas, either by customer requirement or by economic reasons) is actually getting the product, let alone on time.  We'll order a couple hundred parts to be delivered in 3 months, and 5 months later get 50 parts.  A US made part  is generally higher quality (which isn't always really necessary) and more reliably sourced (it may be a few days late, if at all, but not MONTHS!).  

Just a little anecdotal info on Chinese parts.  

[Alan Longmire 3,682]

The story I was told, by a guy who regularly went to China to do QA/QC on parts his company ordered is that while they certainly are capable of doing top quality, there is a strong tendency to make a few really good parts and put them on top, with the rest of the shipment being crap.  His quote: "You get what you inspect, not what you expect."

[Jerrod Miller 593]

26 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

The story I was told, by a guy who regularly went to China to do QA/QC on parts his company ordered is that while they certainly are capable of doing top quality, there is a strong tendency to make a few really good parts and put them on top, with the rest of the shipment being crap.  His quote: "You get what you inspect, not what you expect."

Totally. 

I also know people that have gotten castings from China and you could still see things like bicycle wheels (spokes and all) still discernible, like they put scrap steel in the mold then topped it off with liquid steel.  Pro tip:  Don't do it like that.