Northern Industrial Cast Iron Anvil - 15-Lb.

I don't completely hate this, I wasn't expecting too much either. It's cheap and will do what I need it to. It would have received three stars but the casting is really rough with little to no finish work. The bottom has raised spots which don't allow it to sit solidly without rocking and the top is just as bad. Easy fix with grinder or a big flat file and a lot of filing or by abusing a belt sander and burning through a few belts. A level bottom would have scored this three. Thankfully I know a guy who owns his own machine shop and he'll let me come in and use a mill. Also I don't understand why you would paint an anvil it will all chip off anyway. Like another review suggested it would make a pretty good boat anchor. If you need something for serious metal work, spend more money. If you like me need something hard, about 15 lbs, to pound rivet's... Buy the next more expensive anvil bout this size! I'll use it, but if I knew what I was getting I would have spent a little more on a better one. Every once and a while on a project you need something heavy that can take some abuse; I'll keep this around for that reason.

I actually didn't buy this anvil for any "normal" sort of use. I'm a band director and one of my bands is playing "Song of the Blacksmith" by Holst, which calls for one of the percussionists to "play" an anvil with a hammer. The price and size were right on this one. The size is great and it sounds good. I've only had two problems. The first is that when it arrived, the top of the box it was in was stuck to the top of the anvil...I'm still peeling cardboard off of it. The second is that the paint/coating on it chips off when it's hit with a hammer. Still, it works for what I need it for.

Explains it all. After you get done whacking all the thick paint coating off and get to the metal you can use it whithout covering your peice with unwanted marks and mess, then it can be used for stuff that is not to near and dear to your heart. Because all that crap on the outside is covring all the lumps and holes you couldn't see. Cant believe they would put that stuff on a striking surface! Hope it was not made of lead!I would have not bought it if I knew it was not made in the good ole USA. ALWAYS BUY USA AND LOCAL PRODUCTS! We have the power to get industry back at home. Plus great quality products.

This is not the best anvil in the world. the paint flakes off easily and the casting is pretty rough. not a machined surface on top all in all spend a little extra and get a better anvil.

We bought this for leatherworking... I think my husband thought it was going to be bigger (I don't think he read the specs very well...), because it is really small (about six inches long and four high, with about 2x4 inches of working space on top). Great for use if you're doing work in a small area.

It would not hold up and have since welded a plate of AR500 to the top

I was very pleased with my purchase

I got one of these decades ago when I was young and naive, not knowing it was cast iron and basically useless except for the lightest tinsmithing.Then it occurred to me that I could use it for blacksmithing after all. Let me explain. When you are cutting hot steel there are two basic techniques. The best is to use a hardie tool called a cutoff tool, or just plain hardie. The tool looks like a short wide wedge with a tail that fits into the hardie (square) hole on your real anvil. You lay the hot steel across the tool and hit it with the hammer. Which is fine unless you're using the hardie for something else. Or unless you've got one of those expensive factory made hammers you don't want to scratch.(No don't correct my spelling. There are two traditions "hardie" and "hardy". And no, I can't help it that everything related to smithing has more than one common name which varies considerably depending upon where you're from. And yes, I start sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions! At least I don't drop anvils on the heads of helpless road runners.)The other technique is to lay the hot steel on your anvil then use the hammer and a hot chisel (more rounded than a cold chisel) to cut from above. Pre-WW2 case hardened anvils had a place called a table (step) behind the horn (beak) which was soft and could absorb chisel hits without having to worry about buggering up your anvil face. Trouble is that there aren't too many modern anvils that have a good table. Plus the fact you don't want to go scratching up a $1500 anvil if you can help it. And the possibility that if you hit a steel anvil with anything hard it might break off a fragment.So here is where one of these Chinese iron anvils is sometimes useful. I've used mine, a 15 pounder from Northern Tool, when I needed to make a quick cut on small pieces using a hot chisel. I just laid the hot steel on it, used the hammer and chisel from the top and didn't worry when I left dents.