How Old Anvils Were Made #1

This is the first episode in the forged anvil series. Here we made a very small anvil, but not just a boring one piece anvil made under a lame hydraulic press, but a forge welded 5 piece anvil made from mild steel!
This was made similar to how many of the older forged anvils would have been made using the "build up" method. This involved forge welding (getting something screaming hot and hitting it against another thing that just so happens to also be screaming hot) together the various parts of an anvil: the horn, heel, feet (or sweeps), etc to a large central mass.
With the use of steam hammers, anvil manufacturers were able to make anvils in 2 to 3 pieces around the early 1900's, where in the only pieces to be forge welded would be a lower half (which included the feet) and a top half (which included the horn and heel). These would be made of one piece each and forge welded together. Then a tool steel plate would be forge welded on top. The anvil made in this video was made of a built-up lower half, and one piece upper half, so kind of a hybrid of anvil manufacturing ages.
Now to make a bigger one!

Black Thistle Forge
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