Anvil base - Steel or wood?

I've got a blacksmith's anvil (approx 150 lb'ish or so) and my shop floor is concrete. My anvil has always sat on the floor, and I'm looking to raise it up to waist level or so (my question is NOT about the height). I also have an old steel tractor axle housing that I was intending to use for the anvil base, but I'm wondering:

IF I mount the anvil on the steel axle housing as a base, when I use the anvil will it ring, etc more than normal due to the steel anvil setting directly on a steel axle housing (the base) which is on a concrete floor?

I know some people use old logs as anvil bases, but I'm NOT interested in doing that.

I've thought about putting a piece of wood (plywood??) between the bottom of the anvil and the top of the steel base made from the tractor axle to take a little of the blow or ring, etc out of it when I hit something on the anvil

Is this making sense????, and if so, should I worry about this, or is won't the ringing, etc be a problem if I don't put a "buffer" between the bottom of the anvil and the metal base?

What ever base you come up with, make it as dense/heavy as possible. Then pull the anvil down tight against the base with chain and bolts. The anvil weight will keep it in place, but the ring will go way down if you can get the chain under heavy tension. It's not just the sound, you'll get more work out your hammering. Good luck with it.

I seen one setup where the guy used a tree trunk as the base. but either will work. lets see a pic of this axle you're thinking of using.

My dad built an angle iron stand for the anvil to sit in. At the top, there is a square frame made of angle sized to receive the anvil base. Two holes to bolt it down.

However, there is a wood pad cut to fit into the angle frame that the anvil actually sits on. Bolts go through the wood pieces as well. They had used two scrap pieces of wide tongue and groove flooring, but I recently replaced it with two pieces of scrap 3/4" thick Ipe - very dense, hard and heavy wood.

i swear by using a wood base like an old tree trunk or something along those lones....if theres nothing but anvil straight to metal the volume can get much more intense. The wood acts as a sound deadening device

http://www.iforgeiron.com/

They have all sorts of anvil stands here. anvilfire.com has a few, also.

mrjsl said:

My dad built an angle iron stand for the anvil to sit in. At the top, there is a square frame made of angle sized to receive the anvil base. Two holes to bolt it down.

However, there is a wood pad cut to fit into the angle frame that the anvil actually sits on. Bolts go through the wood pieces as well. They had used two scrap pieces of wide tongue and groove flooring, but I recently replaced it with two pieces of scrap 3/4" thick Ipe - very dense, hard and heavy wood.

Click to expand...

The angle iron frame for the anvil to sit in on top of the axle housing is EXACTLY what I was thinking of doing - but, I was wondering about putting a piece of woor b/w the angle iron frame and the bottom of the anvil - your dad did almost exactly what I was thinking of doing - worked for him, so I think that's what I'll try and do - THANKS!!!

bgott said:

http://www.iforgeiron.com/

They have all sorts of anvil stands here. anvilfire.com has a few, also.

Click to expand...

THANKS for the link! I'll try and check it out before I build my stand - oh, btw, JUST what I needed was another internet "****" site to watch!