This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Red Shoe: There is a very funny exchange in an episode of Gilmore Girls where Lorelai speculates on what happened to all the anvils, given that at one time, they must have been common enough that every child watching a Warner Bros. caroon would recognize them on sight.
There are multiple generations now, of people who would recognize an anvil on sight despite never having seen or heard of what the heck it's actually for.
Dark Sasami: Heh, funny...that's the same sort of thing I said in Record Needle Scratch. And even those of us who know what an anvil is for don't all know why it's got the pointy bit at one end. (It's apparently got to do with making round things.)
Though I'm willing to bet that what happened to the anvils was WWII.
Red Shoe: Just like WWI was what happened to all the corsets (Two battleships they made from the iron boning in repurposed corsets).
The pointy end of an anvil, I gather, is actually The Coconut Effect. Most blacksmith's anvils didn't actually have them (though some did, sure), though the smaller anvils used by cobblers and dressmakers usually did (for, as you say, putting the round bits of whatever you're working on over)
Looney Toons: Dunno where you get that idea. Every blacksmith I've ever seen — and I've seen a surprisingly large number of them, between being a member of the SCA, enjoying places like Colonial Williamsburg, and running into them at craft and cultural festivals — has had an anvil with the "pointy end", which they indeed use for shaping curved and rounded items. Armorers in the SCA use them for making cupped pieces like shoulder and elbow guards, for example. Note that even the tiny anvil built into most workbench vises has a "pointy end".
//Anvils are actually still being manufactured. There's a store near me specializing in inexpensive imported power tools and hand tools from China. And they have... cast-iron anvils, up to 110 pounds (50kg, for the metrically inclined) in size. One day I shall have to ask a clerk there whether cartoon characters are coming in to purchase them.
Tabby: My dad got an anvil for Christmas, and it amuses me to no end. It's 55 pounds and just over a foot long, to give you some idea of the actual density of these things. The real comedy, though, is that he got it by dropping some very unsubtle hints.
Idle Dandy: You know a better way to ask for an anvil? Hee! This entire page rocks hard.
LTR: My dad also has one of those "small" 50-60lb anvils, bought it at an antique store, he says he may use it some day, he does a bit of metalworking, but I think he bought it just because he wanted to have one. Oh, and yes, it has a pointy end, the one thing that comes to mind immediately as what you'd need the pointy end for, shaping horseshoes.
Azvolrien: The forge in our school's Craft and Design workshop has a number of anvils, of various sizes and all resembling the classic cartoon anvil. They are heavy. I saw my teacher moving the smallest one we had. He's a pretty big guy, and he couldn't get it more than a few inches off the ground. (The 'pointy end' is called the beak, the bick or the horn, depending on who you ask.)
Looney Toons: Ah, geeze. X years after this trope went live, I finally think of a much better name for it: Touched By An Anvil.
Maybe I'll make that a redirect.
This paragraph was moved here since we don't need to explain what an anvil is here.
An anvil is a work surface for making wrought iron or steel objects — the metal is heated in a forge until it glows white and is then pounded and shaped against the anvil with a hammer and tongs. Naturally, the anvil has to be something heavy, hard, strong and relatively insensitive to heat — like iron. Several other crafts — such as any clothwork that uses riveting — also make use of anvils, though usually much smaller and lighter ones. If you take a look at a stapler, you'll find an anvil right beneath the place where the staple comes out. The staple comes out of the cartridge, goes through the paper, and bends back on itself when it hits the anvil.
