Forums:

Do you have an anvil?

Timothy Norton

Steward of piddlers

Posts: 7806

Location: Upstate New York, Zone 5b, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

4451

I like...

posted 1 month ago

16
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Once upon a time, the anvil was an important tool in farm shops in order to repair/create tools on the homestead. Is that still the case?

I have inherited an anvil but have not 'needed' one prior. I'm wondering if anyone still makes use of anvils at home.

- Tim's Homestead Journal - Purchase a copy of Building a Better World in Your Backyard - Purchase 6 Decks of Permaculture Cards -
- Purchase 12x Decks of Permaculture Cards - Purchase a copy of the SKIP Book - Purchase 12x copies of Building a Better World in your Backyard

PEP - BB60 Badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by gir bot

George Ingles

pollinator

Posts: 93

Location: Zone 7b, 600', Sandy-Loam, Cascadian Maritime Temperate

posted 1 month ago

12
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We have a couple of anvils on the farm, but I have almost never used them.
My Grandpa used them a decent amount - not for blacksmithing much, though he did a little bit of that.
I recall him heating metal with a torch and hammering it on the anvil - to straighten a damaged piece of equipment or to put a bend or curve or flattened end on some piece of iron. He was always making stuff and breaking stuff and fixing stuff.
I think a savvy person could find a use for one on occasion, or very often if one was inclined to make their own tools.

And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'
-Kurt Vonnegut

John F Dean

master steward

Posts: 8595

Location: southern Illinois, USA

3489

I like...

posted 1 month ago

13
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I have one that is built into a vice. I have never used it as an anvil. What is seeing a great deal of use that comes from times past is a largish bell that I mounted on our back deck. My wife uses it to summon me back to the house. It can be heard at all points on our 10 acres. I have a cell phone … I seldom carry it.

You can only be young once … but you can be immature forever!

Cristobal Cristo

Posts: 916

Location: Sierra Nevada foothills, 350 m, USDA 8b, sunset zone 7

217

posted 1 month ago

16
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I do have an anvil (100 lbs) and I use it on regular basis to make functional objects, modify, repair and fabricate. I use gas forge, torches or my outside stove with hand blower and eucalyptus firewood (produces excellent dense coals).

Carrie Savo

Posts: 16

posted 1 month ago

18
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We have one real anvil and two poor mans anvils (bits of discarded railroad track). We use ours all the time for repairs and making things.

Funny though, we had to almost to a major city to find an old one for a good price because the country folks around us collect them, throw them in their kitchens or family rooms and call it “primative decor”. It pains me to see good tools hanging on some guys wall used solely as decoration.

Daniel Andy

Posts: 114

I like...

posted 1 month ago

10
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I don't. My metalworking options are limited to rough casting, filing, hacksawing, drill press, and cold forging.

So far I haven't found a use for an anvil if you don't also pick up a torch and/or a forge...which is a much larger investment.

J. Syme

pollinator

Posts: 117

I like...

posted 1 month ago

14
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Anvils, Of course. The Wile E. Coyote approved A.C.M.E. tool for catching the road runner. I have a small one in the garage, & a large one in the barn. They are handy for shaping metal objects. maintenance is minimal, wire bush, light oil or bees wax after cleaning. John

John

thomas rubino

master rocket scientist

Posts: 7108

Location: latitude 47 N.W. montana zone 6A

4245

I like...

posted 1 month ago

16
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We have two.
A poor man one, for Liz in her art studio, this gets daily heavy use.
And my 1940's WW2 surplus vice, it gets used quite often itself.

20260427_074320.jpg

20260427_074628.jpg

For all your Montana Masonry Heater parts (also known as) Rocket Mass heater parts.
Visit me at
dragontechrmh.com Once you go brick you will never go back!

Scott Weinberg

Posts: 413

Location: North East Iowa, USA

129

posted 1 month ago

14
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Becarfel about going down the anvil path, as soon you could be a collector, both of tools ( for both square and round holes in anvil. The variations are tremedous, with the largest I have seen at 400#, but all are very useful.

Holding the anvil is almost as important as the anvil itself. Often edge cut blocks, ( edge face towards floor and anvil ) if it is heavy enough, ensuring it will not move out of place is often enough.

With the right tool selection for the anvil, often cold bends can be preformed easy enough.

Best of success.

Scott

https://permies.com/t/241976/Batch-Rocket-single-bell-build

Scott Weinberg

Posts: 413

Location: North East Iowa, USA

129

posted 1 month ago

12
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

A few tools, to make tools of course.

Let the fun begin!

anvil-attachements.jpg

https://permies.com/t/241976/Batch-Rocket-single-bell-build

Jim Fry

Posts: 621

Location: Stone Garden Farm Richfield Twp., Ohio

posted 1 month ago

6
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I don't know, I've never counted them. Probably at least twenty or so. Maybe thirty. Maybe more. I just know there's at least one in every shop we have.

Creating sustainable life, beauty & food (with lots of kids and fun)

Jill Dyer

pollinator

Posts: 543

Location: Oz; Centre South

182

I like...

posted 1 month ago

10
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Yes, a purchase in a job lot at a farm clearing sale. It sits on the bench in the man cave (aka the Shed) I have no idea what it has been used for, for that reason. It's safer to give the shed a wide berth 🤣🤣🤣

Life's too short, eat dessert first! [Source of quote unknown]
You have to be warped to weave [ditto!]

Anne Miller

steward

Posts: 18978

Location: USDA Zone 8a

4805

I like...

posted 1 month ago

7
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Like Timothy, we inherited ours and like John's, I think it is a vise.

We ask the seller to leave it and he did. As far as I know it has never been used since we moved here.

It sits on top of a rust metal cart or shelf. Yard art?

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

See Hes

pollinator

Posts: 571

I like...

posted 1 month ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Funny question not applicable for people living in an apartement but when you consider yourself a PROFESSIONAL AND SUCCESSFUL farmer you will have the following:

A pile of all kind of stuff behind the shed.
This pile are items that have been used to try to improve farming related things but didn't work out or could have been done better.
This stuff has value as it could become handy when you try to develop something new.
Visit successful farmers and you will find excactly this pile

A workshop equipped with most equipment which you find also in any repair and construction company workshop

a small forge fire place including ANVIL and tools

a couple of (not a single) freezer and canning corner

a huge kitchen where you easy can ennoble your overshoot of fruits/veggies by canning, freezing, making snacks and cut all from meat to fish

If you haven't this I am sure you are living from the hand into the mouth barely making a living (at least not from your farm)

In modern times the only right way forward is to come back to nature.

Robert Ray

gardener

Posts: 3475

Location: Cascades of Oregon

934

posted 2 weeks ago

9
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Anvil, swage block, stakes, tongs, post vise it's a sickness. Just had a huge timber milled for a new anvil stump and one for working in the studio. Waiting to be put in place and mounting the anvil. First thing to make once mounted will be bands to go around the stumps to prevent further checking. The other one will be put in the studio for whack-a-doodling on jewelry stakes and forming tools.

cooper-and-timber.JPG

anvil-stump.JPG

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Douglas Alpenstock

master pollinator

Posts: 5765

Location: Canadian Prairies - Zone 3b

1652

posted 2 weeks ago

8
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I don't have a proper anvil, though I do have access to a poor man's anvil (railway style).

Except the anvil is never where I need it, which is usually for tool repair out in the field. So an axe head or a sledgehammer head becomes the improvised anvil that lets me bash things together and keep working.

Charlie Kaiser

Posts: 31

Location: Western East Texas Zone 8a

posted 2 weeks ago

9
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

thomas rubino wrote:We have two.
A poor man one, for Liz in her art studio, this gets daily heavy use.
And my 1940's WW2 surplus vice, it gets used quite often itself.

Look at that Rock Auto fan.... LOL

I've got both the RR track piece probably around 30 years or so, and regular anvil right at 115#. They get a fair amount of use doing what has been mentioned- repairing, custom fabricated stuff, etc. One of those tools that, even if you use it only randomly, if you need it boy is it worth it.

Collectors have, indeed, crippled the market if you are looking for one but if you really want/need one be patient, put the word out, etc. I happened to pick up my anvil from a vendor at a hot rod swap meet for a $250 and it had great sound/rebound.

Burra Maluca

out to pasture

Posts: 13256

Location: Portugal

4401

I like...

posted 6 days ago

6
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Just thought I'd share this bit of trainspotter anvil porn...

How permies.com works
What is a Mother Tree ?

PEP - BB10 Badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by gir bot

Austin Shackles

Apprentice Rocket Scientist

Posts: 172

Location: Portugal

121

I like...

posted 6 days ago

6
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Have to keep an eye out for a bit of railway line. Although I don't suppose I'd make it quite that posh.

Austin Shackles : email anshackles"at"gmail.com.

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 13365

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

7220

I like...

posted 6 days ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Austin Shackles wrote:Have to keep an eye out for a bit of railway line. Although I don't suppose I'd make it quite that posh.

I suppose it is just as functional, but looks too good to actually use! I bought my husband an anvil for his brithday a few years ago. I think his bench vice was grateful!

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

When I was younger I felt like a man trapped inside a woman's body. Then I was born. My twin is a tiny ad:

All of the video from the Eat Your Dirt Summit - more than 42 hours!

https://permies.com/wiki/106759/video-Eat-Dirt-Summit-hours