Anvils in America

[Branson]

Does anybody here have a  copy of this book?  I need to find pictures of the stake anvil issued for the Mountain Howitzer artificers.  I have to very poor photos that don't show much of anything about the horn.  I have Mordecai's measured drawings, but they only show a side view of the horn.  Since I'm looking at having one made, I don't want it made wrong.

[anglesmith]

Branson, I can't find anything about the stake anvil your looking for. Postman mainly focuses on anvils that exist and that he has seen and measured. He groups them into makers and details any information he has found about them. In the end you may have to make an educated guess as to the shape of the bick!
Men more learned than us create dinosaurs from a few bones and who is able to argue with them!
It's my guess that you probably know more about the equipment of the Mountain Howitzer artificers than any one else in America! So who will be able to question your judgement?
Graeme

[mikeswrenches]

Branson, Personally I'm no help in your quest, but the link below may help, or even an email to Jock.

http://www.anvilfire.com/index.htm

Mike

[Branson]

I found it!!!  This is kind of "what have you left on the table."   I had this anvil on watch list with eBay, thinking
it was kinda like what was wanted.  It sold on Nov 17.  I went back over the list this morning, having spent
a lot more time looking at the Civil War measured drawings, and realized this was the one we'd been looking
for, but left it on the table...

On the plus side, I've located a fellow in Virginia who will make one from the plans -- and now the photos. 

Unless somebody here knows where one of these is lying under a table in a junk shop somewhere...

[Branson]

Branson, I can't find anything about the stake anvil your looking for. Postman mainly focuses on anvils that exist and that he has seen and measured. He groups them into makers and details any information he has found about them. In the end you may have to make an educated guess as to the shape of the bick!
Men more learned than us create dinosaurs from a few bones and who is able to argue with them!
It's my guess that you probably know more about the equipment of the Mountain Howitzer artificers than any one else in America! So who will be able to question your judgement?
Graeme

Graeme, thank you for taking the time to check Postman out!  It's not in the local library system and I don't know if I could have gotten it through interlibrary loan.  Don't know if I know *that* much about the Mountain Howitzer artificers, but I'm gonna work on it.  Once I get the tools in hand, I'll know a good deal more.  Much of what I know about Light Artillery artificers and their work has come from having and knowing the tools, and being able to see what jobs they were designed to do.  There's an odd, very odd to me, reluctance to know about them among the re-enactment groups, sometimes a phobia about using the rank.

[Lewill2]

Patrick Leach has this stake anvil for sale on his new April Tool List.

http://www.supertool.com/forsale/aprlist2013.html

Item MI42

[Branson]

"Real tools," yes.  "Realistic prices?'  Not in my world.

[anglesmith]

Branson, Have you see these photos ? (scroll down) http://outils-anciens.xooit.fr/t2166-Forge-de-campagne.htm
I found some other  photos the other day on this site, do you think I can find them again! I'll keep looking.
Graeme

[Branson]

Branson, Have you see these photos ? (scroll down) http://outils-anciens.xooit.fr/t2166-Forge-de-campagne.htm
I found some other  photos the other day on this site, do you think I can find them again! I'll keep looking.
Graeme

Hadn't til now.  Very  interesting!  After the 1830s, the US Army got a lot of ideas from the French.  Most, at least, of the sabers from 1840 onward were copied from the French models.  We adopted the field cannon carriages directly as well.  None of which is amazing, as Captain Alfred Mordecai of the Ordnance Department went to Europe to check out everybody's military stuff.  The French army was the usual winner for our Ordnance, sometimes without modification, sometimes with.  We put our anvil in a chest, and made the stand of wood, but that's the idea exactly.

I just looked around in an army farrier's manual printed in 1915, and low and behold, that mountain howitzer anvil was still being issued!