The favorite tool - Anvils

By NValentine Studio

One of my favorite tools is my anvil. I actually have four of them, a teeny tiny one about 1 inch by 2 inches right up to a full size horse shoeing anvil. Anvils date back to the four millennium BC. I think I have so many anvils because they all seem to have a sense of history to them, some I expect have wonderful stories to tell.

I use my anvils daily. A current problem I am facing is getting my anvils re-surfaced. My favorite one, a smaller railroad tie sized anvil, has many, many dents and scratches. So when I use it to shape or add texture to a piece it also adds unwanted texture to the back side of the piece. It needs to be re-surfaced back to a nice glossy smooth surface, but that seems easier said than done!

You can see in the photo all the dents and marks, while they each have a story to them, I'd prefer a smooth finish. I often wonder what the 83 on the bottom side of my anvil means? Was it a section of a railroad one day long, long ago? Was that some kind of marker as to where it was? What trains crossed its path? Who was on those trains!

Oh, if our tools could talk!