The anvil

The anvil is one of the oldest metal working tools, and really important for blacksmithing. Anvils come in all different shapes and sizes, some big, some small and some in the middle. But often bigger is better!

My dad bought my anvil from a distributor who’d bought it from a school a while back. It was in great condition and weighed 70kg. But we needed to lift it off the floor so that it wouldn’t damage the floor while I was working on it. So, I decided to make a stand out of wood and fabricated metal brackets. The blocks of wood were held together by wood glue and large screws to ensure that nothing could come apart. I made the brackets out of angle iron, which is very strong. They’re held together with 16 bars with threads on the end, which took hours to do!

Overall, I’m really happy with the way the stand turned out - and it’s still holding strong today!

This is a picture of the anvil stand with the anvil on top, taken shortly after it was finished.