ANVIL

Small cast iron anvil of the London pattern. "The London anvil, which is the more common, has a face, table, bick, throat, and hanging end. The face is the large flat surface, and the bick is the cone shaped projection used for curving pieces of iron, shaping horseshoes, making rings and so on. The curved underpart of the bick is the throat. Next to the bick is a fairly small flat area the table, the surface of which has not been specially hardened like the rest of the anvil surface, and which is used when iron is being cut with a cold chisel to prevent the edge of the chisel from being damaged by passing through the iron onto the surface below. At the end of the face, opposite to the table and bick and on the hanging end there are two holes, one round and the other square. The round one is the punching hole, sometimes known as a pritchel hole. It is usually less than one inch in diameter and is designed to take the shanks of various tools and to receive the point of any tool being used to punch holes into hot iron, as when making nail holes in horse shoes. The square hole is the hardie or swage hole. A hardie is a chisel and a swage is a top and bottom tool between which iron is worked to shape. The hardie and the bottom half of the swage fit into the square hole which also takes the square shanks of various other tools that make their impact on the undersides of the work when struck from above." Anvil has what appears to be '4', '4', '1' stamped on the base below the bick.

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History Collection

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