Luckily for us, wrought iron anvils are significantly easier to resurface than cast iron anvils. This means that a wrought iron anvil will get covered in hammer shaped dents and holes. Wrought iron anvils on the other hand don’t chip as much, but they tend to be too soft. To see what I mean, imagine yourself smashing a cast iron skillet with a hammer…the thing would explode!Ĭast iron anvils are significantly thicker than skillets, but they suffer from the same brittleness problem as the cast iron skillet they tend to chip. If you set steel faced anvils against other types, such as cast iron faced anvils and wrought iron faced anvils, steel faced anvils come out on top.Ĭast iron is too brittle and too soft compared to modern steels. This means that it can withstand hammer blows without denting or chipping. A good anvil made with high quality steel designed for the purpose of smithing will be hard but tough. Steel is a great material in that it’s very versatile. Which leads to the next section of this article: Why Do You Want A Steel Faced Anvil? Cast steel anvils meet this description perfectly. We want an anvil face that is hard and not brittle. This is perfectly fine, unless you plan on doing some…unorthodox smithing on the side of your anvil body.Īs smiths we are most concerned with the anvil face, as this is where we will do most of our striking. In fact, while some smiths disagree with me, I find modern anvils made out of cast steel to be superior to the old wrought iron anvils.Īnother point of confusion is that many have a hardened steel face with a cast iron body. Cast steel is different from cast iron, and cast steel is perfectly fine for a blacksmithing anvil. There are however several tricky points that I will try to briefly address.įor starters, most steel faced anvils are made of “cast steel”. While I will go into more detail on anvil composition later on, for now I will just say that steel faced anvils are generally better than cast iron anvils or wrought iron anvils. While there is technically an infinite variety of anvil types, in practice you really only need to worry about 3: What should the anvil be made of? What shape should it be? How much is it going to cost? While ultimately your anvil purchase will be a personal decision, it’s helpful to be as knowledgeable as possible before making that decision. If you just want to know what my top picks are, look no further! additional information is posted below the table.īefore I dive in to the review of blacksmith anvils for sale, I think it would be helpful to spend some time explaining what you should look for in an anvil. What is the square hole in an anvil for.Frequently Asked Questions About Anvils & Trivia.History Of The Forging Anvil And The Blacksmith.How Heavy Of Anvil Do I need For Forging?.What Is An Anvil Made Out Of (Composition).Different Types of Anvils, and Alternatives To Anvils.Best Anvils for Knife Making (Bladesmithing).PMC SUpplies 15lb Bench horn Jewelry Anvil Olympia tools 38-788 Cast iron 25lb Anvil Best Steel Bench Block For Jewelry Making and Metalwork.1. HappyBuy Single Horn Anvil 66lb Steel Anvil.Savor this moment as a beginner, as you will not get to experience it twice! You can make anything you have the audacity to dream up. You will get the opportunity to hand-craft unique pieces of artwork that will ultimately be extensions of yourself. When you get your first anvil, you are joining a brotherhood of craftsmen that goes back millennia. It’s not just a piece of equipment, it is a symbol of a craft that is thousands of years old. Getting your first blacksmithing anvil is exciting.

More than anything else, I will try to impart my love of this ancient craft to you. In addition, I will answer the most common questions I see from beginners, and I will try to give advice to those of you on an extreme budget later on in the article. To help you on your quest for your first blacksmith anvil, I have compiled a list of them that are available for purchase, and I have made a list of pro’s and con’s for each of them. While scavenging can be fun, the results are uncertain, and it can be hard to fit a junkyard day into your busy schedule. It doesn’t help that most online articles and youtube videos recommend that you scavenge for yours. It can be overwhelming for a beginner smith trying to pick the best anvil possible. Whether you are crafting a sword, a knife, armor, tools, decorative scroll-work, or tools for your own use, you will need to use an this pivotal tool at some point in the production process. The blacksmithing anvil is central to almost everything that happens in a blacksmith’s workshop.

A blacksmith anvil is one of the most important and expensive purchases a blacksmith will make.

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