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An 'anvil' is a manufacturing tool, made of a hard and massive block of stone or metal used as a support for chiseling and hammering other objects, such as in forging iron and steel items.

Contents

History

Structure

Types of anvil

Etymology

Anvils in art and entertainment

Television and film

Musical instruments

Heraldry

Notes

References

See also

History

Anvils have been used since early Bronze Age times by smiths of all kinds for metal work, although the tool was also used in much earlier epochs for stone and flint work.
There are many references to anvils in ancient Greek and Egyptian writing, including Homer's works. The anvil was perfected during the Middle Ages when iron working was commonplace.

Structure

The primary workspace of the anvil is known as the face. It is hardened, in order to reduce the amount of force lost in each hammer blow.
The horn of the anvil is a curved area used to form various round shapes, and is generally unhardened. ^[1]
The step or pad of the anvil is used for cutting, to prevent damaging the face by conducting such operations there.
The hardy hole is a square hole into which specialized forming and cutting tools are placed.
The pritchel hole is a small utility hole that is present on some anvils. It can be used with special punches, or as a lever with which to break partially cut stock. ^[2]

Types of anvil

There are many designs for anvils, which are often tailored for a specific purpose or to meet the needs of a particular smith.
The common blacksmith's anvil is made of either forged or cast steel, tool steel, or wrought iron (cast iron anvils are generally shunned, as they are too brittle for repeated use, and do not return the energy of a hammer blow like steel). Historically, some anvils have been made with a smooth top working face of hardened steel welded to a cast iron body, though this manufacturing method is no longer in use. It has at one end a projecting conical ''bick'' (''beak'', ''horn'') for use in hammering curved pieces of metal. Occasionally the other end is also provided with a bick, which is then partly rectangular in section. Most anvils made since the late 1700s also have a hardy hole and a pritchel hole where various tools, such as the anvil-cutter or hot chisel, can be inserted to be held by the anvil. Some anvils have several hardy and pritchel holes, to accommodate a wider variety of hardy tools and pritchels. An anvil may also have a softer ''pad'' for chisel work.
An anvil for a power hammer is usually supported on a massive anvil block, sometimes weighing over 800 tons for a 12-ton hammer, and this again rests on a strong foundation of timber and masonry or concrete.
Cheap anvils made from inferior steel which are unsuitable for serious use are derisively referred to as "ASOs", or "Anvil Shaped Objects".
Some modern anvils are made mostly from concrete. While the face is steel, the horn is not and can be easily damaged. These anvils can be hard to recognize because the gray paint used is the same shade as the steel face. They tend to weight about half as much as a comparable steel anvil.

Etymology

The word "anvil" derives from Anglo-Saxon ''anfilt'' or ''onfilti'', either that on which something is "welded" or "folded," cf. German ''falzen'', to fold, or connected with other Teutonic forms of the word, cf. German ''amboss'', in which case the final syllable is from "beat,", and the meaning is "that on which something is beaten" and has likely influenced the English word "emboss"{fact}.

Anvils in art and entertainment

Television and film

A typical metalworker's anvil, with horn at one end and flat face at the other, is a standard prop for animated cartoon gags, as the epitome of a heavy and clumsy object that is perfect for dropping onto the villain of the story, a convention started and most often used in Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts (mainly Road Runner shorts) and later animated properties based on or influenced by them.

Musical instruments

Anvils have been used as percussion instruments in several famous musical compositions, including:

★ Giuseppe Verdi: Il Trovatore featuring the famous ''Anvil Chorus''

★ Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen in Das Rheingold in scene three using 18 anvils and Siegfried in act one, notably Siegfried's Forging Song (Nothung! Nothung! Neidliches Schwert!)

★ Gustav Holst: Second Suite in F for Military Band, which includes a movement titled "Song of the Blacksmith".

★ Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3 (Copland)

★ William Walton: Belshazzar's Feast (Walton)

★ Juan María Solare: Veinticinco de agosto, 1983 and Un ángel de hielo y fuego

★ Pieces by Jean-Baptiste Lully

★ Howard Shore: The Lord of the Rings
Albert Parlow: Anvil Polka
The Beatles use an anvil in Maxwell's Silver Hammer of their Abbey Road album

Heraldry

The Norwegian municipality of Hol has three anvils in its coat-of-arms.

Notes

1. ''The Complete Bladesmith'', p. 10
2. ''New Edge of the Anvil'', p. 39

References

★ New Edge of the Anvil, , Jack, Andrews, , 1994,

★ The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way to Perfection, , Jim, Hrisoulas, Paladin Press, 1987,

See also

★ smith

★ forging

★ iron

★ steel

★ blacksmith

★ silversmith