Anvils

[park ranger]

I have a Peter Wright that had rounded over edges so I ground them down clean and built them up with hard surfacing rod (for dozer blades). Then reground the edges. The edge has been there for around 15 years and withstood both my kids and me.  Remember there is a small length of the top that should be rounded over with like a 1/2" radius. 

[Al_Smith]

I noticed Ironwoods avatar lists Pittsburg Pa .If there was ever a steel city that's it .

My father grew up in the Penn Hills /Universal area as a teenager .I remember driving passed the huge mills and the glow of the big furnaces as a teenager while visiting for a family reunion .Sadly with the way the US steel industry has circled the drain I'd well imagine they are all gone now .

To build a huge steel mill you need three things ,fuel ,ore and transportation .Pittsburgh had all three . Cleveland had one ,Lake Erie .

Then you have the Ohio river with a steel town about every 50 miles at one time ,gone .When they let the steel industry in this country slip abroad is when we got in the shape we are in right now .On that I think it's best for me to just end because the more I think about it the madder I get .

[Okrafarmer]

I know what you mean, Al.  >:(

[Ironwood]

We do have a few specialty mills around. I have been present for a few liquidations of old mills (several in the Allegheny Valley) I have hauled ALOT of pattern shops home in my day......

I have some cool artifacts here from various mills, some shop made tools, etc..... American Bridge (AmBridge Pa, Youngstown Sheet Tube, some coke plant stuff from Struthers, Ohio Carbon Limstone (my grandfather was a night watchman), Edgewater Steel Oakmont Pa., US Stel Clairton, and probably many others......Signs tools, tongs, etc.....

My Father was an open hearth area crane operator, Youngstown Sheet Tube, the Center Street Bridge in Struthers Ohio went right over the rolling mill area my Dad worked, cool stuff watching that red hot iron flying out of the rollers onto the deck, one of my earliest memories (the SMELL! Sulfur like). We would sometimes go pick him up on the other side of that bridge when the whistle blew several thousand men came rolling out that gate. What a sight......

I have a replica of a French-Indian War anvil here. I friend who was a historian/buff, found part of one buried locally on a farm where some of the fighting occured (really all thru "Westylvania") He had a master made a cast 6 of them from high quality alloy. I got the last one he had, he died suddenly not long after retiring from his history position at our local highschool. Man was he INTO smithing. I will get a pic of it tomorrow.


Here are some more pics of my other friend's collection of anvils.... He drags the   from all over the world....


  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

[Al_Smith]

I've only worked in one mill but twice .Every summer Empire -Detroit aka Reeves in Mansfield Ohio had a maintainace shut down .Two weeks of 7-12's .Make a bunch of money in a short period of time .

The vastness of a steel mill is hard to imagine unless you've been behind the gates . This was in the days they still ran the 200 ton open hearths . In July the heat was almost unbearable and those open hearths had been shut down a week ten days before we ever got there .Aside from that it was interesting .

[Ironwood]

I have been in a few mills.....HUGE buildings. Amazing size.....

I had a classmate of mine's father fall off a catwalk (it broken as he walkd on it) into a caldron/ladle of iron, vaporized him :'( Poor family, good folks too. Still makes me tear up. What a shame, raised three outstanding boys thou.....Nearly all my classmates either had ties to the mills or farms, good place to grow up.


Ironwood