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[Shanba]

So uh...

what came first, the anvil or the forge?

[Sean Mirrsen]

A forge. A mooding metalworker transmuted a still into it, and made an artifact anvil from which all others were made.

[Shanba]

Personally, I think it was an anvil created in the Embark! screen

[PTTG??]

Neither. Armok came first.

[Vengeful Donut]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>A forge. A mooding metalworker transmuted a still into it, and made an artifact anvil from which all others were made.</STRONG>

No metalworkers without forges;
The anvil came first. A mooding clothier make a cave spider silk anvil.

[Boksi]

But you need a fire-safe anvil. Cave spider silk isn't fire safe.

It probably was a moody craftsdwarf/fisherdwarf though.

[Halfman]

The first anvil probably wasn't even an anvil. It was probably made of some kind of stone. Therefore a mason must have made it...

[Butcher Jackson]

This paradox actually bothered me enough to do four minutes of Wikipedia Research.

Apparently the first anvils were of stone and were used for flintworking.  Even today, inferior anvils (Anvil-shaped Objects, or ASOs) are made of concrete with a layer of steel on the top.

The hardened iron or steel anvil is desirable for it's durability and smoothness, as imperfections in the hammering surface are translated to the metal being worked.

Concievably, prehistoric dwarves could have started with smooth stones and moved up through a range of increasingly higher-quality ASOs, until they created an iron anvil that became the standard.  Since Dwarves do not create inferior products (the lowest quality good is of "standard" quality) they would have never gone back.

[Belteshazzar]

Obviously the god of smithing handed down the first anvil and all other anvils are descended from it.

[Lazer Bomb]

quote:Originally posted by Shanba:
<STRONG>Personally, I think it was an anvil created in the Embark! screen</STRONG>

What about an anvil brought by your first metalsmith?

[Keizo]

I've smithed hot metal before, and I used stone anvils. They frequently cracked and broke, but being free to make and completely disposable, I was able to forge a crude blade going through maybe 4-5 stone anvils. Not bad, considering the "value" of the blade was much greater than the stones I was using.

Also, a side note. Smithing anything is DAMN fun. I recommend all of you forumdwarves to try it. I smithed using a campfire and a cheap plastic billows.

[Eagleon]

It's also possible to use wood to cold-forge something. Not nearly as permanent a surface, especially with tougher metals, and you have to anneal your work periodically to soften the metal and avoid excessive imprinting in the wood, but when you don't have the tools to polish the face of a metal surface, it can provide a surprisingly smooth pre-finish for jewelry and such.

[Torak]

Obviously, the universe was programmed with Paradox absorbing springs.

Someone went 1000 years into the past and gave a dwarf an anvil, and told the dwarf to make sure that in 1000 years, that anvil was given to him again.