Vulcan Anvil

[dwain]

I have a chance to buy a Vulcan 100 lb. anvil. Are these anvils as good as any? It will be my first one. I am planning on building a gas forge. Thanks, Dwain

 

[J. MacDonald]

Let me first state that I've never forged a knife, so take my comments accordingly. I bought a lot of three anvils from an estate sale, all around 100lbs. One of them was a Vulcan. I ended up selling off two of the three as I didn't need three anvils, and probably don't even need the one I kept yet, but I might build a forge some day and a man can never have too many tools right?

The Vulcan anvils that I found while researching are a little different than most anvils in that they are made of a wrought or cast iron body with a face of hardened tool steel bonded to the body. Most anvils are solid cast steel. Because the anvil is made of two different materials bonded together they tend to be very dead sounding when struck. The anvil doesn't ring like a solid steel anvil. This can be a very desireable quality if your neighbors are at all sensitive to the sound of you pounding on an anvil. Unfortunately in my case, the Vulcan was pretty beat up. They are known to be prone to chipping and the one I had was pretty badly chipped around the edges or I'd have kept it because if the lack of ringing. It had good bounce, a near 1" steel ball bearing would bounce back about twenty inches when dropped from a height of two feet so the desireable rebound was good. You might want to get a large bearing and a yardstick to check rebound this way before purchasing.

From what all the real smiths tell me, 100lbs is a bit small for most, but is a decent sized starter anvil, especially if the price is good.

 

[B . Buxton]

I've forged a bunch of blades using a 150# vulcan and I'll be forging a bunch more, I like it just fine. As Mr. MacDonald said they don't have that ringing tone that other anvils put out but to me that is a +. My vulcan is good, solid, flat and has a nice rebound, so what more do I need. I paid $125 for mine
5 yrs. ago ,another big +. Actually the base your anvil sits on is just about as important. I set mine on a 3ft.long 20" diameter oak log buried about 12" or so in the ground. top of the anvil is just under waist high, but I have pretty long arms.

Have fun,

Bill

 

[frogfish]

I recently purchased a 120lbs Vulcan it was in pretty good shap except that the edges had been chipped up some, it's true that it doesn't ring as much as a solid anvil but for me that's a good thing I've been using it for a while and it's a big step up from the block of steel I was using before. I don't have lots of experience with differnt anvils but I'm very happy with my Vulcan oh and as the previous poster stated the rebound is excellent. If this helps I paid just about $2.00 a lbs for mine.

 

[DAMNENG]

I also have a 100 lb (approx.) Vulcan. Just after I bought it, about 10 years ago, I found a great deal on a new solid steel 100lb anvil. I had to grind the sway out of the Vulcan with a 9" side wheel gringer. Took me about 4 hours of grinding over a weeks time. I figured I use the Vulcan until I developed my forging skills enough to start using the new one. 10 years later I'm still using the Vulcan. Just like the way it sounds and feels. It ain't no pretty thing but it works just fine.
You didn't mention how much you were paying for it. $2/LB isn't too bad if you don't have to do a lot of clean up.


Jim Arbuckle

 

[tnmike]

I just bought one off ebay in great shape for 135 bucks. It weighs about 100 lbs. (20 inches overall length.The top is dead flat and has one or two minor nicks near the hardie hole.

Vulcan anvils are kind of chunky looking and some people dont like em..I think they are fine if you can get one that is not beat to death...