Anvil

[BLUEBONNET2]

did the EPA make you put a safety chain on it to hold it in place????? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
hope it don't fall on any toes.......... /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

good luck,
bluebonnet2

 

[yonahforge]

The chains serve two purposes - one is truly just to hold the anvil still. Using the horn or heel of the anvil can cause the anvil to walk around on the stump (unless you've got one of those 450# anvils /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif). The other reason is sound - cinch the anvil down, and the ring quietens down some. In a concrete block shed, you need all of the noise reduction you can get./forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

I'm looking forward to the weather cooling off some, getting the shed cleaned up and firing up the forge. It's been too long since I've been able to do anything other than work on the honeydo list.

Jeff

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Evening old man, /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Visit this site, http://www.keenjunk.com/index.htm go to the forums and describe your anvil. You will find out more than you'll probably ever want to know.

Blacksmiths are a little like firemen. Common sense says to run and curiosity makes one do otherwise. The denizens of the junkyard are a wonderful bunch. You'll love them.

Welcome to my world. I have a hundred and twenty five pound farrier's anvil on a nine hundred and thirty seven pound steel block. It works just fine. I also have a treadle hammer and a fifty pound Little Giant. More fun than most folks can stand. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bgott]

I might have a line on a forge from the same shop the anvil came from. I think it would be a rivet forge, it's kind of small. The hand cranked blow works well and the only thing that I see wrong with it is the legs are rusted off of it. There is, however, one leg intact so I have a pattern for bending some new ones out of pipe. This stuff was all on the outside of the garage, once the family goes through the inside and gets what they want out my buddy gets to clean it out. No telling what kind of suprizes await!

 

[bgott]

Figuring out what brand this thing is took some time. The manufacturers of these things didn't go out of their way to cast their brand in clear and concise lettering. After cleaning it and spending some time decyphering the hieroglyphics and then searching the 'net comparing names I finally figured out that this is a Hay- Budden. It looked like Hay-booo, with the "o"s being indeterminant. Once I had a name to go by and it got dark so I could use the flashlight to highlight the shadows it was easy. Are the letters on the castings on all these things so hard to read, or does readable lettering signify a more valuable specimen?

 

[yonahforge]

Welcome to the Hay-Budden club! I forget what the rest of the markings say, I went and looked, but don't remember. I'll have to see if I can decypher it again. You've got a wrought anvil with a welded steel top, not a cast one, and a good one IMHO.

On the lettering being hard to read, the side of many anvils were used as just another tool, and were banged up. I've taken my anvil (released it from it's chains! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif), laid it on it's side and used the side as a good solid surface. Now there's small circles showing where I did that.

I've also flipped my anvil over and chiseled my initials into the bottom. My intrest in blacksmithing started with a stolen anvil - my grandmother had her barn torn down. My dad and I went to get the anvil but could not lift it (the barn had been torn down around the anvil, and debris was everywhere.) The scrap guy came around and hauled off the tin, and stole the anvil. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

You mentioned in a previous post about the two holes in the body (underneath the horn & heel) - these were for the factory to handle the anvil.

 

[Currmudgeon]

You stole that anvil /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Hay Budden is an old line US anvil maker. Here's some background:

second United States manufacturer of anvils was Hay-Budden Manufacturing Co. (James Hay and Frederick C. Budden), Brooklyn, New York. They supposedly began operation in 1890 and went out of business in the era of 1920 to 1925. In 1905, Hay-Budden claimed that there were over 100,000 of their anvils in use. Hay-Budden advertising says: `Every Hay-Budden Anvil is made of the best American Wrought iron and faced with the best Crucible Cast Steel. Every genuine Hay-Budden Anvil is made by the latest improved methods. Top and bottom are each one solid piece and welded at the waist. The steel faces to these anvils are all put on in one solid piece: not two or more pieces, as is customary with most anvils ... we have produced a steel for the faces of our anvils which will take a harder temper and be less liable to chip than any on the market ... and the blacksmith who wants a strictly first-class anvil can make no mistake in purchasing a Hay-Budden."

Hay-Budden manufactured a number of different pattern anvils, making the farrier's anvil with and without the clip horn. They also made an Plowmaker's Anvil, a double Horn Anvil, a Hornless Anvil, a Sawmaker's Anvil, and Cooper's Steel faced Beck Irons.

http://www.fholder.com/Blacksmithing/anvil.htm



Anvils-6: Weight of Anvils
Anvils are marked in a variety of methods but most English anvils were marked using the hundredweight system. However, some English anvils were marked in stones and anvils made in other places (including many Swedish anvils) are often marked in pounds. A few are marked in kilograms and some cast anvils are marked in pounds rounded to the nearest 10 pounds (250# = 25). Cast markings are easy to identify as they are usualy raised figures rather than stamped into the anvil. Then there are the many unmarked anvils. . . If you are not sure and you really need to know then weigh it.



Hundreds Weight (hundredweight) System:


Typically the hundreds weight markings are seperated by dots but not always. These figures were stamped into the finished anvil and are often not very deep. The first figure to the left is hundred weights which equal 112 pounds. The next figure is quarter hundred weights which equal 28 pounds and the last number is whole pounds. The three are added together for the total weight. Examples:


1 · 0 · 16 = 112 + 0 + 16 = 128 pounds

2 · 1 · 3 = (112 x 2) + 28 + 3 = 255 pounds

2 · 2 · 25 = (112 x 2) + (28 x 2) + 25 = 305#

http://www.anvilfire.com/FAQs/anvil-6.htm


Based on your "224" marking, the weight would be

(2 * 112) + (2 * 28) + 4 = 284 lbs.

 

[bgott]

Being that Hay- Budden was an American manufacturer, wouldn't they have marked it in pounds rather than hundredweights?

 

[pruntyc]

Mine says 1* 1* 7, I weighed it and the cheap scales said 144. So it would really weigh 147 right? I still can't make out the writeing on it. Maybe one of these days I will wire brush it with the drill and use chock to see all of it.

 

[bgott]

147 is what I get. How did you weigh it, on the bathroom scales? Your wife might have been doing some "adjusting". /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif 3 pounds might have rusted off of it since it was new. Is the number stamped or cast? If it is cast they might have had a tolerance built into the number, then again, they might have just screwed the original buyer out of three pounds worth of anvil.