Finding and choosing an Anvil.

 Anvil worthy metal is hard, but elastic. It needs to compress little and bounce back well, all while not cracking or shattering. A good test for determining whether the block of metal could be used as an anvil can be done with a 1" hardened ball bearing. If you drop the bearing from a 1 foot height, it should bounce back up almost to the level which you dropped it. The anvil should also ring pleasantly, almost like a bell, when you strike it.

Finding an anvil can be difficult and time consuming, and if you will only be doing a small amount of smithing, buying an anvil is not a necessity. As long as you have a block of metal that you can pound metal on, you will be fine.

Anything that you use for an anvil needs to be big and well secured to a stand, the heavier, the better. The more inertia that the anvil has, the more the hammer will rebound and the easier time you will have working the metal. A common substitute for an anvil is a section of railroad track. The metal is beaten and hardened from years, sometimes a hundred or more, of supporting train cars. The train tracks can be bought from any metal supply store, or if they are doing maintenance on a railroad near you, you may be able to score a deal with one of the guys.

If needed, you can buy a cube or rectangle of steel from a steel mill or steel supply depot to use as an anvil. You really can use anything, just as long as it is the proper type of metal.