My anvil stand started wobbling mid project and I had to improvise

I was working on a pair of fireplace tongs last Tuesday and about halfway through the second scroll my anvil started rocking forward on the stand. The whole setup sits on an old stump I cut three years ago and I guess the wood finally dried and shrunk enough that the steel bracket got loose. I had to stop everything and shove a scrap of conveyor belt rubber under one edge just to keep the anvil from tipping when I hit it. It took me ten minutes of messing with different shims before I got it stable enough to finish the upset on the tong end. Now I gotta figure out a permanent fix that doesn't involve buying a whole new stand. Has anyone else had their stump base shift after a few years and found a good way to lock it back down?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen4101mo ago

Three years is actually pretty common for a green stump to fully settle, I've heard of guys waiting five years sometimes before the movement stops completely. Maybe it's just me but have you tried drilling two pilot holes diagonally through the steel bracket into the stump and driving some 8-inch lag bolts in there? I did that with my post vise stand after it started wobbling on a red oak stump and it locked it solid for two years now without any shims. The key is to pre-drill deeper than the bolt length so the threads bite into the untouched wood below the surface, not just the dried outer layer. You could also slap some roofing tar under the bracket before you bolt it just to fill any micro gaps.

uma_baker991mo ago

Karen410's got the right idea with those diagonal bolts. I read somewhere that the angle actually helps lock the bracket into the stump better than straight down, something about the wood fibers gripping sideways. Pretty smart trick with the deeper pre-drill too, never would've thought of that.