need some ideas to refinish my antique anvil

Thunter124

Well-Known Member
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as you can see its kinda rusty and has a couple of gigantic "chips" near the hardy hole, which I have no earthly idea how they could have been made. Anyone know of a good way to knock off all the rust and get it back to a polished finish, and what I could do about the chips?
 
T., them aint chips, theys chunks. Use an angle grinder with a wire cup wheel to remove the rust. Then use a flap wheel and a woodworking belt sander to smooth up the face and radius the edges. I like to start at the area at the horn end and have a radius of about 3/8" tapering to nothing about half way back. The same on both sides, if possible. You will just have to live with the "chunks"
 
Ain't much you can do about the lost faceplate at the heel, but you still have plenty of anvil left for knife making and general blacksmithing.

Take the rust off the face and get to work making some blades.
 
Well, you could have a good welder build up the chipped/chunked out areas with a hard surfacing rod and work it back flush and smooth with the rest of the surface when your cleaning it up. That would be a lot of trouble for not much return, IMHO. A carpenter's belt sander will work really well to clean it all up like Wayne said, and an orbital sander can do a pretty good job if you modify it a little and are patient.

Is there maybe an inch or so broken off of the heel where the pritchel hole was? Great find, regardless.
 
Once I get this bronchitis knocked out Ill get to work on the anvil, I can find everything yall suggested in our shop but the grinder, thing died a couple months back. I may try to forge some steel into the chips and weld it there. I was about to just go ahead and flat file the thing, but that'd take forever.
 
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