[TheForge] Re: Peter Wright anvil

[Mike Spencer]

Ralph Sproul wrote:

> I ask because the two larger anvils have so many punch marks on the
> side of the numbers that it is hard to read them.  It looks as
> though someone did punched copper lanterns on the side of them.
> Someone suggested to me at one time it might have been to check the
> hardness of a punch or chisel.......but that didn't make sense to me
> it being wrought iron and all.

Yarn time.  Years ago I spotted a blacksmith shop in Blockshouse, NS,
and stopped to meet the smith.  The smith (long since deceased) had a
fire going and was 2/3 of the way through a bottle of rum, which lent
a certain ambiance to the conversation.  To make conversation, I
remarked on his anvil face, which looked shiny and very well used.

Me:     I guess that anvil face is pretty hard.

Smith:  Hard?!  I'll say that anvil's hard!

Whereupon he grabs up a freshly sharpened jack hammer bit from the
hearth, raises it high over head and smites his anvil...and misses,
coming within a hairsbreadth of castrating himself.  Without a pause
he repeats the mighty blow, this time hitting the anvil face squarely.
And raising a nice little pucker mark in the face.  Without missing a
lick he says, "That point is *hard*.  I just hardened that point."

And he was right, the point was undamaged after its encounter with the
anvil.  However, that had led my eye to the anvil again and I noticed
that the side was covered with little square puckers just like the new
one in the face.  Long story short, he explained that that was how he
always tested his bull points and demonstrated, leaning on the anvil
with one hand, reaching over and whacking the point into the far side
of the anvil body with a roundhouse blow.

So whether it makes sense of not, I think anvil pox is/was caused by
testing freshly hardened bull points.  My 2/2/25 PW has a sizable
patch of anvil pox but not enough to obscure the weight marks.

Still yarning:  That same rum-fueled smith had a gas welding rig
consisting of an oxy tank and an acetylene generator on a dolly.  I
only recognized what it was because I had once rented an old farmhouse
with an old acet generator in the cellar for lighting.  Says I, "Isn't
that a bit dangerous?"  Says he, "She blows up once in a while" and
points up to the remarkable, high arched and plastered ceiling. There
was a big sunburst of soot on the plaster right over the gas rig.



- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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