Rebound:
To me this is the more important of the two tests. If you’re on the hunt for an anvil the I’d keep that 1” ball bearing in your car on the off chance you come across something.
“Rebound” is the name given to the amount of energy an anvil reflects back at the user. But it can give a good indication of face plate problems.
Take your 1” ball bearing (Larger or smaller it doesn’t really matter.) and your ruler. Now hold the ball at 10” above the anvil face and drop it. It’s best to do this so you can see how high it bounces.
10” is ideal as it’s very easy to do the math for it. A “good” anvil should have more than 70-75% rebound. So the ball should bounce a minimum of 7” high. Many anvils will produce rebound higher than this but anything drastically less should be approached with caution.
This is where cleaning the anvil face makes a big difference. Paint and thick layers of rust WILL drastically reduce rebound, so clean the face if you can.
Like the ring test, you should check rebound all over the face. The heel will have less rebound than the face, just like the ring there is less material there so it behaves differently.
The rebound should be the same across the whole face. An areas where it suddenly rebounds a lot less may indicate a crack or delamination. If this occurs during the testing then have another good look at the anvil. (Common sense) It may be that there is a significant crack you missed initially so proceed accordingly.
As frustrating and disappointing as it it. (Trust me, I know) You are better off in the long run to save your cash and walk away from an anvil that is too damaged to be usable.
Step 4. HAGGLE!!!!
So you’ve looked over the anvil and everything is in order. There’s a couple small flaws, a little sway or maybe a chipped edge. Use that to your advantage. Start to umm and ar about the price. Make a cheeky low ball offer. You never know you might get lucky.
If for arguments sake your seller wants £400, why not offer £250 or less! They might know what they have is valuable but they might not. You might get laughed at but on the other hand they might either accept the offer or come back with a slightly reduced figure. Ultimately you’ve saved yourself some cash.
Remember rule number one? Always bring cash and bring more than you need if you can afford to. Money talks. Your seller might start to budge on price if he sees some nice crisp notes being counted out infant of him.
A trick I’ve heard of people use is to count out the sum they want to pay in front of the seller. Some guys crack at this.
The other trick to try is to ask if they have any other blacksmithing stuff. You might stumble on a gold mine of equipment. If that is the case and you can afford it (and there are things you want) then you should try and get some other stuff as part of the deal.
So I hope this has helped some of you out there. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. PM me directly if needs be.
All the best
Andy