Originally Posted by
ScottGoodman
Please do not use water over oil.
I am a VFD and was also a firefighter in the Navy. Before someone says everyone is a firefigher, I went to a month long school on it, there is more to it than "put water on it and it will go out". Lots of nasty stuff would/could happen if you use oil over water. Fire needs three things to exist: Heat (we will have that), fuel (oil above flash point around the hot steel), and oxygen. If the anvil had enough volume to it, when it hit the water it would boil VIOLENTLY. This will add oxygen to the flashed oil and in the violence you would have the potential for a VERY large flash of fire.
I don't know the exact size of your anvil, but my recommendation would be about 1/3 of a 55 gallon metal drum that would have about 3-4" of space from the rim with the anvil in it. Heat the anvil to temp and drop it (I like Tim's idea) in the oil & cover it with a metal "lid". There will be fire on the dunk, the volume should be ok to avoid flash point of a large volume of fire, but it will be a little spectacular. I would still do it outside and have an ABC extinguisher handy...i doubt you would need it.
Side note, I saw a video somewhere where anvils were just dropped into a pond or lake for HT...but it wasn't O1.