After doing tons of research on the interconnecting web thingy, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Nimba Anvil. Its one of those *this is going to be the one and only anvil I will ever purchase* sort of things. Made right here in the USA, I gotta say, its one high quality anvil.
I got the smallest one Nimba had to offer, The Titan….small is pretty ironic in this sense, the sucker weighs in at 120lbs…Id hate to see what their bigger anvils are like. Shipping was approximately $100 USD at this point in time. After hastily unwrapping the anvil, which in itself was pretty humorous, the shipping label was taped to the top surface and a heavy duty nylon cord was strung thru the hardie holes to make a handle, that was all the unwrapping I had to do.
Man, what a beautiful surface, I must say the finish on this thing is superb, my luck ill dent this thing as time progresses, but at least I can say its being used. The anvil itself has a super loud ring to it when struck. To deaden the ringing, the guys at Nimba recommended putting a magnet under the square horn end, that was that, ring gone. With a pine stump that was reclaimed from the house were rebuilding (old roof viga actually) and some plumbers tape, we *securely* mounted this beast. So far so good, the height is perfect for me to do some heavy wailing on here. Down the road Id like to find a bigger log for a wider base, right now its kinda precarious if you happen to bump into it with some force.
With such a large mass of steel under the work, stamping (hallmarks and such) are a breeze, before I would get double strikes, not any more. Doing inlay work (gold/silver/copper into stainless steel) is so nice on the rounded horn, every impact with the hammers are solid and do their job. Now its time to start collecting other accoutrements for this anvil…
With the new anvil and base assembly, my brother and I started thinking it would be a good idea to put all our impliments of destruction close at hand….hence…
The Wolds Best Hammer Organizer!!!
Okay, maybe not the best in the world, but for $10 ($6 PVC pipe, $4 Pine 1″x2″, and screws we had laying around) you cant beat that with a stick.
To make, grab some 1-1/2″ PVC, I like black, thus, we got black pipe, cut into 6″ sections. Since the pipe is 10′ long theoretically you can get 20 units out of this, but my bro had to cut it down to fit into his car, so we only got 17 pieces from the stick. Next take a 1-1/2″ hole saw, and in a drill press with a vice (we used the milling machine) cut a half round section from one end. This saddle that is created helps keep the hammer heads all pointing in the same direction.
From here, we marked and drilled two sets of holes 1″ from either end. One hole big enough for a screw driver and the head of the screw, the second hole just big enough for the screw to fit thru. We placed these around the stump with enough room to give the heads plenty of clearance, don’t want those tools getting nicked up and all. The second row was placed lower and the 1″x2″ pine cut 6″ long situated underneath it to space it out from the stump. Pre-drill holes in the pine to keep it from splitting. Then just screw those suckers in. We were able to get 16 hammers in there.
If we get more hammers, were gonna need a bigger stump.
P@
www.patpruitt.com
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