1.2.1.4.1.2 Shipyard - Building - Hull - Tools - English Wheel - Anvils

There is a lot to say about anvils; they are the key to success and there is so little to be found on www or elsewhere. It was a painfully long process of trials and errors, in which we end up machining and re-machining five anvils. At the end we got quite familiarized with them and they are now called flat, twelve inch, eight inch, four inch and Radford. Hopefully I will put some more details here in the future, however, in conclusion:

1. Dont bother about surface hardening or hardening, steel #12 or #14 is hard enough for Aluminium.

2. You do need to flatten the radius on the top of the anvil, size of the flat is in proportion to the radius (i.e. 12",8" and 4" radius would have approximately 19, 12 and 6 mm flats respectively). The flat has to have a smooth transition to the radius otherwise you would end up bending the plate.

3. Actually it was possibly the most enjoyable experimental work I was involved in with a very tangible results at the end, tangible to the point that they can easily break your toe.

Fig. 4.1.5 Set of Anvils used on Joohee R14 plating

Fig. 4.1.6 Close look at anvils by master Ladislav