Anvil Hardness

The question we often get is how hard is the anvil. This is not a simple question.

Hardness depends on several things, including:

• What material is the anvil made of? It would seem fairly ridiculous to have a high rockwell hardness on a material that is very durable when hardened to a medium level, but brittle at the higher level. Most of the European manufacturers are very tight-lipped about the material they use and they rely on their years of manufacturing and selling tough products to speak for them.
• Where on the anvil do you want to know the hardness? There should be different levels of hardness at different spots on the anvil. Do you want extra hardness on the edges so that it fractures rather than takes the beating.
• What testing procedure was used to get to that number. The most widely known testing procedure, the electronic ball indenter, is probably the most inaccurate of them all and usually gives are higher than true reading.

So, asking the question "How hard is that anvil?" may not be the right question. The right question might be how long have they been producing anvils and are the known for their quality.