Anvil repair

[clifford]

I have an anvil of Chinese manufacture, and have abused it on top of it being soft. Ignorance, I suppose.

I will be attempting to resurface it tommorrow. I have read of anvils being re-hardened. Has anyone attempted this? Any ideas?

I have no idea of what kind of steel this anvil is cast from, and no money to buy a replacement. Any advice would be appriciated.

I was thinking of sitting it on a charcoal fire, upside down 'till hot (what temp, I have no idea. I do have the ability to measure surface temp.) then quenching, somehow.

Thank you.

[philip in china]

Is this one of the HF type Chinese anvils? Here I have several of them. They are close to useless except as a table on which to work- but then you know that already. I have spent a lot of time on this question and my honest advice is to fabricate a cover for it. This can be done quite simply by getting a suitably wide piece of heavy structural channel and welding a piece of pipe underneath so that the pipe engages on the horn (so called ) of the anvil. Then make a small peg to go through the hardie hole. I forged one out of a circular drop and an offcut of rebar. A peg or bolt or whatever goes through the base of the peg to secure it in place. It looks dreadful, performs badly but works. I have a 2*2*0 Brooks which I use for my work and I actually have a cover of this type on there which is padlocked in place to prevent the locals from abusing my anvil when I am not there.

As for doing anything more- frankly they are just not worth the effort.

[Frosty]

You'll almost undoubtably be wasting your time trying to harden a chinese anvil. the chances are close to 100% it's cast iron and not hardenable.

A solution I've been toying with for a couple years now is to braze or silver solder a piece of HC steel plate to the face of a cast iron anvil.

To make it work though you'll need to grind the anvil's face to close tolerance. It needs to match the steel plate as well as possible because the thicker the braze or silver solder the weaker the join.

If you're wondering how well a brazed or silver soldered joint will stand up to pounding it's how carbides are attached to drill bits for soils exploration. I seriously doubt a human being can match a 453 detroit diesel for hammering something, especially into frozen glacial till.

Glacial till being the hardest unconsolidated soil formation there is, It's been compacted by a couple miles of glacial ice for a few thousand or tens of thousands of years.

Anyway, I can tell you from nearly 20 years of personal experience a brazed or silver soldered join will take the devil's own hammering without failing. It should do just fine for holding an anvil face down.

Something to consider.

Frosty

[Johannes]

the word presse papier comes to mind

weld a big slap of carbon steel on it... it may serve some temporary use then

[clifford]

Thank you,
Welding, or soldering, a cover seems more reasonable than hardening this thing. It may very well be cast iron, though it isn't brittle.
What kind of welding rod would be recommended for general welding of an unknown metal? I am restricted to welding with an acetylene unit. Or a solder? The only solder I have now is labeled; Oatey 2982 Safe-Flo silver lead free solder. I have only used this for filling gaps in the tang area of knifes, so I don't know how well it would perform elsewhere.
I admit I know nothing about welding/soldering, though I have done it many times.

[Dave M]

if you already have an oxy unit I would braze the plate to the top of the anvil. I would use a flux covered brazing rod made for cast iron or dissimilar metals also I would preheat both pieces and after brazing allow to cool down as slowly as possible

[ThomasPowers]

Which would also do a great job of annealing your surface plate making it soft. I don't know if the anvil/brazed joint would take a hardening quench shock to try to harden it.

My basic take on this is "I want to spend more money and time trying to make this usable than it would cost to find a better substitute" Ni rod for welding on cast iron is NOT cheap!

I walked along the rr tracks once and found a broken knuckle of a rr car coupler, it made a decent anvil and was free! A large chunk of Dozer from a scrap yard or repair place can make a great anvil and cost less as scrap than buying welding supplies and gas.

Remember that most "anvils" in use in the world do not look like the london pattern anvil---for example the japanese swordmakers anvil looks like a big rectangular chunk of steel---yet the work they do on it is considered pretty good.

check out this For an out of the box anvil Marco/Krieger Armory - Rapiers and Accessories

Save the HF for a cutting surface

[FrogPondForge]

The topic of relative cost of repair comes up. I got my son's cast steel 110# HF Russian submarine anvil from a HF store for $56. It is far better than any of the cast iron ASO's and CHEAP. They are "discontinued" on HF's website. My local store had sold the last of theirs 6 mos ago. I called a bunch of stores and found 3 in Vineland, NJ. It was about a 50mi drive, but still a bargain. You might try the same thing. There is a "store finder" on the website (somewhere). Start calling closest first and work your way out. East Tenn. might be a little lean on HF stores, check it out. I had my eye on a big cube of scrap at the local liquidators, would have cost as much or more than the Russian sub. Worth a shot. MIKE

FrogPond'sDad

[steponmebbbboom]

Originally Posted by ThomasPowers

check out this For an out of the box anvil Marco/Krieger Armory - Rapiers and Accessories

Save the HF for a cutting surface

as a forklift mechanic i can tell you that is a very unusual eye design for a fork. since the heel is still nice and thick i am assuming that it was scrapped due to being seized to the crossbar... but most eye type forks are rounded at the top and the eye itself is offset rearwards and welded to the fork before heat treating.

preparing a fork in a similar manner and inverting it before welding to the tie plate will still give you plenty of flat surface to work, and if you have access to a laser cutter you can cut the heel with a large tooth that you can shape into a decent horn, but most forks will not have enough thickness to safely allow you to include a step. others have made anvil stands and such from forks, rthibeau's gallery shows an amusing variation. for a post anvil i would suggest using a class IV or higher fork; the typical class II/III do not have enough thickness in my opinion to take any serious pounding.

[ThomasPowers]

Well, I am that "Thomas" they mention...

Actually the forklift was scrapped by driving it off the bluff behind a shutting down portion of a steel casting company along with a lot more "junk" that sat for 20 or so years until I moved a couple of miles away and felt it calling to me. I assume the two forks were sliding with no problem before that.

I particularly liked that style as it did give a larger face with the mass directly underneath it. I have the original fork in my scrap pile and gave on the location of the scrounge site when I moved 1500 miles away. Marco and Krieger did well with that knowledge!

BTW I cut that round stock with a 30" hacksaw---a bowsaw frame with a bandsaw blade in it.

An Anvils step was designed to have a soft spot for cutting so as to not hurt the hardened face or the hardened tool. No need for it as you can use a soft piece of steel as a cutting plate. Many european anvils don't have it---it's not a necessary part of the anvil. I used to use it for some bending tasks till I found a couple of swages that did a better job. I cut on a cutting plate.

far better to get a hardy hole if you can cut one!

Thomas