Watch: You Don’t Need an Anvil!

This guy makes sense, and naturally, what he says flies in the face of what other folks say about anvils.

Like so many others, I have thought about forging red-hot steel. Pounding it on an anvil to force it to comply to my will! Making my own knives! Insert Tarzan yell here!

Are anvils nice to have? Surely. But this fellow says you can get away pretty well without one by getting and using an ASO, or “anvil-shaped object.”

Even those handy-looking little anvilettes made from railroad rail are on the lighter side of good — and they don’t even have a flat top.

So, head down to a scrap yard or machine shop and find a good hunk of heavy metal. He’ll tell you what to look for:

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.