The day I found out my anvil face was crowned and I never knew

Been hitting steel on the same anvil for 6 years, a 150 pounder I got from a farm sale outside Reno. Last weekend a guy came by my shop to look at a vise I had for trade, and he ran a straight edge across the face. He just looked at me and said, you know this is crowned about 8 thousandths in the middle, right? I thought he was messing with me, so I checked it myself with a feeler gauge. Sure enough, there's a slight hump across the face that I've been hammering against the whole time. That means every flat piece I've drawn out has a subtle curve in it, and I never noticed because the curve is so small. But it explains why some of my scrollwork and leaf shapes always looked a bit off when I set them on a flat table. Has anyone else dealt with a crowned anvil face and did you mill it flat or just learn to work around it?

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margaretj4029d ago

Did you check to see if it's actually a REALLY old anvil that came pre-crowned from the factory? Because back in the day they did that on purpose for some jobs, and you just spent 6 years unknowingly making slightly curved everything. That's kind of hilarious honestly. My buddy has one that's crowned and he just flips his stock over and hammers the other side to cancel it out, which is dumb but it works. You could also just embrace it and tell people you make "artisan curved" pieces now, that sounds better than saying you've been fighting 8 thousandths of a hump for half a decade.