I snagged these "anvil" pictures from IFI, all exelent anvils. I especially like the cut off crank shaft

If you look at this, you will find two modifications I shamelessly took from Steve Sells. 

 

 

That is my understanding, yes #1 is a broken train couple. 

#2 is plate

#3 is large shafting

#4 I think it is a hammer from a rock crusher from a gravel quarry 

#5 6" block, a hardy bick and a plate (chiseling?)

#6 an un mounted drop on a choke cherry stump.

#7 large granit cobble

#8 I have a suspicion it's from another rock crusher

#9 I suspect this is a large axle hub, but not 100% as to the block at the bottom 

#10 the lowly rail anvil properly orintated.

#11 another large drop

# 12 another properly oriented (for heavy forging) rail anvil with the web ground as a fuller

#13 and lastly a track hoe mounted hydronic breaker bit. Some in the archives is a descusion by another member who mounted one and has been using it as an anvil. 

I believe one of the rock crusher hammers was actually from a metal shredder that shreds cars.

Number four is a breaker bit off a large backhoe.  The last pic is the hammer that pushes the breaker.  Both the hammer and the breaker bit make great "anvils". Number four has 80% rebound.  When prices come down on German and London pattern "real" anvils I'll get serious about getting one until then it works just fine for most everything I do.  Thanks Charles

As Papy is the proud owner of #4, that leaves #8 as the car shredder tooth.

thank you BGD and Papy for identifying them, and thank you all for posting them in the first place so I could latch on to them for our beginners, and London patern desert brothers and sisters. 

Here is the other breaker hammer bit, mounted

now we don't have a picture of a 10-20# sledge hammer head in use as an anvil, or a splitting maul. Both are usable as anvils. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to post all these Charles. I hope EVERYBODY takes the time to go thru them. A lot of nice, and necessary  work, can/has/will be done on non traditional anvils. Al

Here is my makeshift anvil

small section of slab from a steel mill. 

Prob should be smoothed but it works fine for larger roughing 

58, thank you. Many here (myself included) would recomend turning that monster on end for maximum mass under the hammer. Is that the end cut off of an old bale spear? I have a cone just like to from one I replaced the spike on. 

Perhaps we should start a thread for "improvised cone mandrels" too as I have several, the most fun one being the penetrator point from a ballistic missile...

Be my guest, it sounds like you have a start right in your shop. 

probably a couple of weeks before I get up there again; I'll check to see what I have down here tomorrow.

Please do, it only takes a spark to kickstart ones imagination, and get one out of the trap of looking for the proper tool

  Here is the sledgehammer head standing upright in a stump. I can't take a credit for this idea. Yes, it came from IFI, made this last year for my 5 year old, I use it more than he does. 

   In the quest for better tools. I randomly will buy an anvil, after a test drive, comes the hard part. Finding a good home for the anvil, that will go away. The tools I have I use, would love to have a stack of anvils. Budget and space, say no. For every one I sell, I get a handful of the, just starting looking for a deal on a London pattern." I need to have one before I can start". Every one gets the same answer, its not the tools that make the craftsman, its the craftsman that makes the tools. Then describe the sledgehammer head anvil. 

 

Definitely not a London Pattern anvil

More improvised anvils

 

 the Himalayas

 

Blacksmiths from the Himalayas

 

From the Himalayas. Yes he is using the side of a hammer as a small anvil.  

Cool thread

We have so many new smiths coming here with the common misconception that an anvil is a magical tool that looks like the acme product that fell on Wiley e coyote, we needed to show them what a real anvil looks like. 

Would any one have pictures of ancient anvils? I don't want to make problems for Glenn and co for mining the internet and causing copyright waves.

made this quite a few years ago, it gets a lot of abuse from newbies.

 

Reading the Sept/Oct 2017 issue of Archeology  I had to wince as I read "Lost Kingdom of the Britons"  where the author stated: "The fort's blacksmith had an anvil" I've mailed the editor asking why they didn't mention "The fort's cook had a way of heating food", "The fort's weavers had looms" or "The fort's spinners had spindles".

Also they mentioned that a delicate iron pin was "pounded into shape rather than cast".  Hammered would be better than "pounded" and casting of iron in the West dates nearly half a millennium later... 

For medieval anvils "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" has several examples shown as well as the 

Hylestad Stave Church carvings:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/door3932.jpg

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/door3934.jpg

Roman:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9e/b3/81/9eb3817abaaaeb2bea4014935995e818.jpg

Viking:

https://www.iforgeiron.com/uploads/monthly_2017_08/IMG_2551.jpg.e5ac230c5eeeeb00fe235b9d0cfc2f52.jpg

Thanks for the liks TP, unfortunately the first two ' pitt.edu ' generate a 404 error, will you have access rights the rest of us don't?

I am the proud owner of #12. I have since made a new stand and found a new improvised anvil. I'm told by the scrap yard guy cutting up the large stuff that is was from a d9 or d10 dozer. 260lbs

Stopped at my grandfather's old metalworking shop and took some pics of this/these frankensteined beauties..

That plate on the right is enormous. This old man has one of just about everything... except his 25# trip hammer he sold about 3 minths before I decided to take up the craft... shucks. 

Little brother to the one Jasent has. 110 pounds of ex bulldozer parts.