are anvils heat treated
True original design which was made as early as the year 1825, and possibly earlier. The #58 & #57 anvil have evolved over time to be the most desired anvil design, and along with the London pattern anvil they are found in use more than any other style. Typically the # 58 anvil used with the round horn to the left (offhand side) as the smith stands by the anvil. TFS has been in the anvil manufacturing business for several decades, providing quality anvils for the professional farrier and blacksmith. TFS anvils are heat treated to exact specifications and hand finished. Face: 4 x 14. Horn: 4 x 9. Height: 8-1/2. For other information on anvils see: ANVILS on my Dick's Shop Tips Page. Below is a picture of a large Ernst Refflinghaus Anvil being heat treated in the same coal forge used since 1876. Note the use of bars and chains to manipulate the anvil by hand. The best way to get a uniform temper is to heat a larger block or slab of steel to a known temperature and then set your blade on that and let it soak up the heat. It should remain at tempering temperature for as long as you can maintain it or up to an hour. These in turn are effected by heat treating or mechanical working. Most non-ferrous metals can only be hardened by work hardening, hammering, rolling, bending. But they can be softened by annealing which is heating to a red heat and then cooling quickly (opposite to steel, see below). This rate needs to be maintained for 4 to 5 hours. The temperature varies but the cooling rate is the same for alloy tool steels. On a small part it is easy to lose heat at too fast a rate and end up with a hard part without quenching. A thin section of water hardening steel will air harden if you are not careful. There are three distinctive features of the Nimba anvil: the thick-waist of the anvil body, the placement of hardy and pritchel holes in the face of the anvil, and the dimensions of both the round and square horns of the anvil. SUPERIOR STABLITY. The only way to correctly cool an anvil face is with a cascading column - the bigger the better. I've successfully heat treated three anvils this way but if I did it regularly, I'd put a 1000 gal tank on legs with a 6 valve and elbow so the water could be dumped quickly. Someone in a related thread asked me to post a separate note on how I have repaired anvils, including the heat treatment - so here is an expanded text of a post I put up in May 2008. When I started blacksmithing in the early 1980's, good anvils were very hard to obtain and usually pretty expensive. n 1993, Nimba Anvils was founded with the goal of providing the best quality double-horn anvils manufactured in the United States.
Yes, TFS anvils are heat treated to exact specifications and hand finished.