This anvil stand is one of my better physical contraption designs. The anvil itself was made locally out of old railroad track and the maker did a nice job. I had to clean up the hardy hole and that was about it. The issue with the railroad track anvils is that they are generally only about 50 lbs.

Blacksmiths for along time had cast iron anvils, then later cast iron with steel tops. A common anvil size is 100 to 150lbs for a regular blacksmith. In the modern era, it can be difficult to obtain such a heavy anvil because of shipping weight and expense. The larger the pieces one is working with on the forge, the larger an anvil one wants. This will slow the bouncing and energy absorption that happens with a light anvil during hammer blows.

The second best anvil stand I’ve seen was a large anvil placed on top of a steel box. The steel box was filled with sand. The steel plate that the anvil was sitting on the top of the box was floating. Thus as the sand compresses on the stand there isn’t a hollow space. I liked the design for function, the thing that was lacking with is was ergonomics. The box holding the anvil was much larger than the anvil face. In order to use it, the blacksmith had the lean over quite a bit.

This anvil stand I designed solves several issues. On the bottom is a 1” steel plate. This adds a lot of weight to the stand and puts the majority of weight right at the bottom. This keeps the stability of the stand. It also keeps the stand mobile to shuffle around the shop by dragging it . The middle of the stand is a steel pipe filled with sand. The sand dampens any ringing or bouncing when hitting the anvil. The top plate has the anvil bolted to it. There is a cut out in the top plate, to be able to dump out the sand. This makes it so one can dismantle stand by unbolting the anvil and dumping the sand to make it easier to pick up.

When using it and only the pipe in the way, one can get right over the anvil without issue. The height chosen for the anvil face is the classic arm straight, knuckle height. The total weight of the anvil and stand is at least 200 lbs. So the stand makes a 50lb railroad anvil into a modular, ergonomic, inexpensive quiet anvil with zero compromises.