Doublewide rail anvil; think it'll work?

[DocsMachine]

Hello all. Followed a link over from the Home Shop Machinist site, and since I'm starting on a project, I thought I'd hang out a while.

I'm in Alaska, and so shipping on heavy items like anvils can easily be equal to the cost of the anvil itself. And, there's a fair number of farriers, do-it-yourselfers and elderly metalbeaters around so that anvils are rarely sold, and when they are, they're bought up instantly and for relatively high prices.

I'm looking to build myself a small propane forge, using one of the various designs out there (any recommendations?) and to go with it, I'd need an anvil. I'll just be doing small ornamental stuff, or the usual knives and whatnot, until I either get the hang of it and start thinking of bigger stuff, or I lose interest and go back to combat sportfishing.

Now, what I have in mind is this, see attached photo:

I had a section of heavy-gauge rail in the scrap pile, just over 20" long. I torched it in half, notched one end and trimmed the base so that the two can sit fairly close together.

I then had the machine shop at the college run them through the heat-treating ovens to anneal them. From here, I plan to mill the two mating faces fairly flat (I have a machine shop) and weld them together. Probably with a normal rod like 7018, except for the topmost 3/8" or 1/2" of the gap at the face, which I plan to fill with hardfacing rod.

Next, we also annealed a 6" by 3-1/4" roundbar of 4140, which I plan to mill down to a vague horn shape, and weld to the end of the rails. Filling the top of that gap with hardfacing as well, and probably with a decent gusset underneath made out of plain mild steel. I'll then "cap" the gaps between the rail web with plate welded in place.

The whole mess will likely be just over 100 lb when done, and giving me a 6" x 10" top face and 5" long horn.

That plan at this point is to anneal it again, to both soften the hardfacing rod, and relieve some of the welding stresses. I'll then flycut the top faces to dead-flat, and do a little cosmetic grinding and polishing here and there.

Any questions or comments at this point?

The last part I think will be a bit of a problem- I need to reharden the face, but the college's (electric) heat-treating ovens aren't suitable for spot heating, or heating and then allowing a quench of something this large. (In other words, I don't know how we'd get a 100-lb block of red-hot steel out of the tiny front-loading oven and into a quenching bath. Besides the fact quenching it in oil is right out- no proper ventilation, massive fire hazard and the ovens are right next to the teach's office.)

Any suggestions?

Doc.

[irnsrgn]

Hardfacing rod will show up as a bright streak down the center of the anvil face and have underbead cracking and peel off if over one layer thick, weld the top joint with 10018, full penetration weld and then use a hardfacing underlay rod for the last 1/2 inch or so, weld the bottom joint with 7018. Weld the horn on with 10018. Check with resturants or fast food resturants for used deep fat frying oil to quench in.

Cut the top out of 55 gal steel drum and then cut the top two thirds off the barrel, put the oil in the bottom third of the drum as a quench tank.

Cut four or five 1 1/2 inch slots about 6 inches tall around the cut end of the top piece. then place your anvil up on a couple of fire bricks on a dirt base and place the top portion over the anvil. Throw in some scrap wood and start it on fire. Keep feeding the fire till the anvil glows a nice red. Then remove the barrel from the anvil, insert a long pipe or rod thru the center void in the anvil and set the rod on the top of oil resevoir with the anvil top down and let it alone till it cools, There will be a lot of fire at first and for awhile till it cools some so be prepared for it, hence the long rod.

Do your machining before heating and you might consider machining half of a square hole toward the heel of each piece so they match up prior to welding for a hardy hole.

This should give you a suffiently hard top to work enough top to work hot iron on.

Good Luck

[meco3hp]

Doc,
If Jr(Irnsrgn) says it'll work, don't hesitate no mater how weird it might sound to you! Jr is a master in my opinion. Check out his Blueprints on anvil repair, in the blueprint section. Your on the right track!

[Glenn]

Don, welcome to the forum.

Go to http://www.iforgeiron.com/BPindex/BPindex.shtml and look over some of the "Blueprints" the how to projects, tools, and jigs. As you construct your anvil, take photos of the process and we can work them up into a blueprint.

[HWooldridge]

I think a big block of steel would make a better anvil but if you are stuck with RR track, then Jr's comments are spot on. However, water will do a better job quenching as the mass is too great to harden properly in oil. I have repaired and rehardened several conventional anvils and can affirm that a large amount of water in a cascading column is needed to remove the heat.

[irnsrgn]

I have rehardened several anvils that have gone thru fires, and I prefer water too, just not sure what the 4140 will do in a water quench.

[Kallsme´n]

It´s not recomended to cool 4140 in water quench, but you can try to do it in short steps.

Roger

[DocsMachine]

I was wondering about using the 4140. I went with that simply because the shop has stacks of it.

What would be a better choice for the horn, then? My first idea was just to go with mild steel and hardface it with the welding rod, but as mentioned above, I'd heard it tended to crack or peel if you tried to build it up to any appreciable depth.

Doc.

[irnsrgn]

Best thing would be Stress Proof Round, just machine to a taper and then cut to fit, very few anvils have a hard face on the horn, just plain ole wrought iron. You won't have to worry about the horn cracking or breaking off if you use stress proof or even cold rolled. Water will give you a harder face than oil will and No nasty flash or flames, but watch out for steam, when I reharden the face of an anvil I use a thin board or a piece of flat in the water to keep the water circulating to better cool the anvil. Most anvils are hardened under running or falling water, but the ones I have done in slack tub harden well.

[Kallsme´n]

i would recomended 4340 and heat it up only with the tourch and than
let it cool down with kompressed air blown to it. i would guess it will be about 50hrc.

Another steel you could use is 1045, this is a steel with 0,5% carbon and you can chill it in water and the sarface been pretty hard. about 55hrc.

Roger