Anvils…

H. Clay Aalders
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This is a must read.  It is a little on the longer side, but it had me rolling. Russia was my favorite.  What is yours?


 

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H. Clay Aalders

H. Clay Aalders is a lifelong edged tool user. He spent the past 20 years as a woodworker and fishing guide in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Tennessee. While guiding in Idaho, Clay worked part-time writing for a local newspaper, and upon moving to Tennessee began writing for the blog The Truth About Knives - spending his last 5 years there as Managing Editor. His background is in fixed-blade hunting and bushcraft knives, but has jumped into the world of vintage slipjoint collecting with both feet since coming to work at Knife Magazine. Clay’s primary role is as Digital Editor, curating and creating new content for our website and blog, as well as maintaining the Knife Magazine social media accounts (FB/IG: @theknifemag, Twitter: @knifemagazine). He is also a contributor and Associate Editor of the print magazine.

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One Response

  1. “Holey Hardy Hole”!! I have never thought of anvils as funny . . . This is hilarious! I own an 89-lb “Peter Wright”. “Pete” was an Englishman. The English measured their anvils weight with a proprietary “hundredweight” system. A hundredweight = 112 lbs; A quarter-hundred weight is “28 lbs” and lastly was “pounds (lb.). My anvil is stamped “0” “3” “5” = 89 lbs. A question popped into my head as I pondered the “why” of this system. “Why isn’t a hundredweight = 100 lbs?”. What was the standard by which hundredweight was determined? My research down the “Alice Hole” revealed that the English liked to measure stuff by using “stones”. The base weight of a “stone” is “14 lb”. The arithmetic shows “8 stones = 112 lbs. A “stone” can be broken in two to achieve a “half-stone” and further broken to get fractions of a stone. I surmise that anvil makers combed the fields and streams to find a standard “stone”. The geometry of the stone most likely was not a factor. I think a smooth egg-shaped stone would be best.

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