Well, some guys in a blacksmith club in NJ used to run an anvil repair
workshop once a year. You'd pay your $150, bring your anvil and they'd
rebuild the face, etc.
They were using a large coal or charcoal fire to heat up a whole
anvil, upside down, hot enough the remove the old tool steel face plate
and then they planned to forge weld a new face plate on in it's place.
They failed to check the anvil at a critical point and pretty much
melted most of it away. Hot enough? I suspect that anvil was in the
150 pound range.
If any members of that club see this, feel free to correct or add to
this post as necessary.

Pete Stanaitis
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P.S. Our club's retired railroad guru absolutely refuses to give us a
thermite demo.
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dave wrote:
snip
related questions: if using thermite proves impractical for whatever
reason, how hot can I make a charcoal fire BE, in degrees, assuming I
stack some firebricks in a circular beehive sort of shape, and have it
'blower fed' air, from like a vacuum cleaner or somethin'?