Anvil silencing

Wear "ear defenders" - useful for other noisy jobs too including the use of the power hammer, angle grinding, wire brushing, nagging wife/girlfriend etc

Wrap a chain around the anvil waist and your good to go

sounds simple enough... thanks...

Have you tried hanging a bucket of sand off the horn?

matthew

I just stick something in the pritchel hole. A piece of 3/8" or 1/2" rod, bent in an L shape works well as is usually out of the way. This works especially well if it's not your anvil; it's easy to do if you are at someone else's shop or demonstrating somewhere.

BTW, I like the Harbor Freight $20 electronic ear protectors if I have to be around a noisy anvil.

Pete Stanaitis

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Magnet stuck on the waist under the heel. I use a salvage magnet on mine to dampen the ring. Some people use old speaker magnets from blown out speakers. Rob

I was thinking about this, and wondered what's the big hoopla was about silencing an anvil.

Honestly I've invested in a good set of ear muffs, I forge within the legal hours for a residential address, and I have a dedicated shed.

My anvil doesn't ring (possibly because it's a piece of crap, ductile iron), and it sits on a constructed wooden pillar (made out of layers of scrap wood).

If my anvil did ring, why would/should I silence my anvil.

Regards Charles

If you had a real "ringer", you'd know why it is done. Certainly the earmuffs help. But earmuffs aren't always handy, nor do they look "period" when in fron of the public. And when I am in front of the public, I don't want them to have to put up with it either. Even in a shop with multiple anvils, the ringing can be so bad that workers 30 or

In my opinion, the thing about a "ringing" anvil is highly overplayed anyway. The main thing you get from a ringing anvil, I guess, is the knowledge that the face plate is secured fastened to the body. I have some that ring and some that don't.

Pete Stanaitis

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Chilla wrote:

The other thing is there are no cracks within that would stifle the ring. It is one way to buy one. If it rings - high quality and sound. If thud then one must examine and understand second rate strength or a crack.

Mart> If you had a real "ringer", you'd know why it is done. Certainly the

Or it might be a Vulcan cast steel anvil. They don't ring much, or at all, but they rebound well if in good shape.

My old Peter Wright rings like Notre Dame's bells. I'm getting hunchbacked from standing back from it. Chains or magnets have no effect at all. Next step is a lead sheet under it, I suppose.

Quasi

John- try the "L" shaped rod in the pritchel hole (that I mentioned a few posts back). The shape doesn't matter, except that it's easy to get in and out of the way. I usually use about a foot of material.

Pete Stanaitis

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John Husvar wrote:

Ok - try this:

Get the baby ringing and gently feel over the casting. If you feel vibration anywhere - should somewhere - that is the place to put something. The point of resonance peaking.

That should change the frequency or dampen it. It is like taking a vibrating string and pinching it in the middle - wavelength is 1/2.

The ring might be up/down the horn or heal ?

Someone mentioned putting a tool in the holes.... Changing the shape.

Mart> >

Very good idea ! It's no use putting anything dampening materials in wrong places.

Actually the anvil makers should sell new anvils predampened. Screw-holes in strategic points and removable rubber+iron dampers.

And dropping the natural frequence.

shape.

Only one total solution. Weld up a deep tray to stand the anvil in and fill it with a heavy gooey sustance like treacle - that'll damp the vibratins but may make using it a bit difficult

AWEM

My 305# PW is pretty loud, too.

Make or find an iron ring, oh, say, of around 5/16" stock and maybe 3" in diameter. Attach it to a throttle or similar spring. Attach the spring to the anvil stump/support under the horn and at the foot of the anvil. Stretch the spring and put the ring over the horn of the anvil. This will reduce the anvil's ring noticeably. If you need to work on the horn, it's only half a second to knock the ring off the horn with your left hand (assuming a correctly left-pointing horn :-). Put it back during the next heat.

The Anvil's Ring published my note about this decades ago. It's the ring that catches the ring. Set a thief to catch a thief.

Why not just put on a pair of welding gloves and wrap a cat around the base and bungy-cord him on?

Mitch

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I'll try some after I get out of the hospital -- if they ever get me in. I'll have a few weeks downtime if they operate. They'll have to slice and dice a bit.

But I'll pass on the cat thing. I don't think the change from ringing to caterwauling would be much improvement. My black and white tom is declawed (that way when he arrived) but his fangs are 3/8-inch and he knows how to use them. Welding gloves would just make it harder to get the fangs out. We call him Shamu at 16 pounds -- and he ain't particularly fat. Worse, he's taught the other cats his techniques.

Mitch, I expect I would run out of cats. Besides, the ring would be a demonstration of skill to show off, whereas the cat thing might be frowned on by some of the neighbors, especially after the first couple of days. A layer of leather or cotton rope would be more effective than the cat, and more decorative. But they are organic - more likely to insulate the metal and barely muffle the sound.

The chain thing seems the best approach. That, or a chain made of various odd-shaped and different sized bits of scrap. That way the loose mechanical contact and random acoustic "shapes" would defeat the anvil's native resonance feedback that results in the ringing. Maybe use several loops, each of different weights of chain. I imagine the combination of sizes that best damped the ringing would be unique to each anvil. Scraps of chain turn up at flea markets and various auctions; I have a bucket and a half of short chunks. Now if I could just get my hands on a decent anvil that I had to worry about the ringing..

Mitch, I expect I would run out of cats. Besides, the ring would be a demonstration of skill to show off, whereas the cat thing might be frowned on by some of the neighbors, especially after the first couple of days. A layer of leather or cotton rope would be more effective than the cat, and more decorative. But they are organic - more likely to insulate the metal and barely muffle the sound.

Oh, I don't know.....cats are a renuable resourse! Besides, there are so few uses for a cat anyway, seems one should take advantage and use them where you can. Even the Chinese have only 3 or 4 uses for a cat: put him in a soup, fiddle strings, use his coat for trim on garments, who knows, "anvil mute" may go far :) As for neighbors, show your teeth and growl LOL!

Mitch