[blksmth]

One of my first anvils was to have the edges welded up at a affiliate meeting by the experts. Put the anvil in a ring of fire bricks with a propane weed burner inside. Everyone went to lunch. When we checked the anvil it had turned gray and the face lost all it's temper. Then had a soft faced anvil until I replaced it. Just mentioning my mistake so hopefully no one else will make the same one.

[HWooldridge]

I have not fixed as many anvils as Mr Gunter - my count is only a bit north of 20. Most of the ones I have done were replated and rehardened, but a few were edge repairs. I originally used Certanium rods for edge work but have also done spot work with a MIG using solid wire and shielding gas. The nice thing about wrought anvils with high carbon top plates is that small repairs will often generate carbon dissolution in the affected area and the repair will be quite hard with no extra work - might not be as hard as the rest of the plate but still enough to resist blows.

The Stoody rod should work for you and I doubt you will draw the temper with welding only. It typically takes a lot more heat - like what happened to "blksmth" - to draw the temper enough to soften the face.

BTW, it is not all that difficult to reharden an anvil if you ever come across a soft one. I built a custom forge to heat an anvil face, which doesn't take very long. The hard part is finding a suitable water source to chill that mass fast enough to get the top plate to quench properly.

[Fe-Wood]

Ok-
Sounds like a go so far. I will be picking up the Stoody Friday.

Blksmth-
Thats a drag! I can only imagine your distress! I will be watching mine for sure!

Dragon-
Yup! after watching Brian work on his nice sharp edges and seeing how easy he got good shoulders, I decided it was time. My best radius is at least 3/8" and its only about 1.5" long and right up nice to the step. Or, I can run around the anvil or work the near side, and get slightly better edges. Non of them are consistent

HWooldrige-
If I mess up the temper, I hope you can share some techniques with me. I will be doing a steel ball test after the repair to see how I do. Currently my rebound is about 80%. PW's don't seem to have the sharp ring of a Trenton either which is nice.

I'm figuring this will happen in the next couple weeks and Clinton is going to come up and help. While the anvil repair is going on, I think we will be making some dies for his Common Sense and my Little Giant hammers. Should be a fun adventure

[ThomasPowers]

As I recall Charles McRaven in "Country Blacksmithing" mentions re-hardening an anvil using a local fire department for a high pressure water source.

[Mainely,Bob]

Easy enough to do.
Build a fire around the anvil on the ledge next to the cove.
When hot enough(try to time it for high tide,that`s important)take one of the tree trunks you dragged up for the fire and push the anvil off the ledge and into the cove.
Wait for low tide and get the clammers to help you drag it back to the shop.

Any other high tech problems I can help you guys with?

[ThomasPowers]

Unfortunately if you have a decent sized anvil that won't work as the steam blanket will keep the water off the face for long enough to miss the hardening nose---especially with the plain old steels used in older anvils. You have to have water under pressure to beat through the steam to the face at the very beginning.

Traditionally they used water coming down from a height like a water tower or flume to get the force needed.

Now is there any other low tech problems we can help you with?

[Mainely,Bob]

You are forgetting the fact that when it hits the mud the clams will all be alarmed enough to shoot pressurized salt water onto the face(provided The ledge is high enough for the requisite number of flips to get it to land face down).

You guys talk like this is my first anvil repair(if this qualifies as one).

[HWooldridge]

Fe-Wood, on 12 March 2010 - 01:19 AM, said:

HWooldrige-
If I mess up the temper, I hope you can share some techniques with me. I will be doing a steel ball test after the repair to see how I do. Currently my rebound is about 80%. PW's don't seem to have the sharp ring of a Trenton either which is nice.

Thomas hit the nail on the head about the steam blanket. Once you get the anvil to critical temp, you need a source of sufficient water to remove the heat quickly enough to harden the face. I can tell you that an old overhead fuel tank filled with water works quite well (and I'd bet a fire hose would, too) but dropping one into something like a big cattle trough with only minimal agitation can cause cracks because the cooling effect is uneven. A large volume of water descending quickly over the entire anvil is the key to a good face.

I once used two 55 gallon drums and a couple of big wheelbarrows along with a garden hose to quench a 250 lb anvil. The face got quite hard except around the hardy, which did not cool fast enough. Before we started, I was worried we didn't have enough water and that it would be an issue, so I concentrated the pour onto the main part of the face. A few anvils later, I did a 180 lb Mousehole with an old fuel tank that had a 6" pipe outlet. It put out plenty of volume and the whole face got hard.

[Phil Krankowski - pkrankow]

What about flame hardening, using the anvil body as part of the quench? Would this not provide enough depth to the hardening?
Phil

[HWooldridge]

pkrankow, on 12 March 2010 - 09:50 PM, said:

What about flame hardening, using the anvil body as part of the quench? Would this not provide enough depth to the hardening?
Phil

Never tried it but might work...

[Fe-Wood]

Mainely,Bob, on 12 March 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

Easy enough to do.
Build a fire around the anvil on the ledge next to the cove.
When hot enough(try to time it for high tide,that`s important)take one of the tree trunks you dragged up for the fire and push the anvil off the ledge and into the cove.
Wait for low tide and get the clammers to help you drag it back to the shop.

Any other high tech problems I can help you guys with?

Hmmm-
I got a river close buy, should be in flood stage in June with ice cold snow melt.... No clams though

[HWooldridge]

I have always thought that if someone were doing a lot of anvils and wanted to set up for that purpose, a good method might be to have a large water tank, maybe on the order of 1000 gallons (like a large stock tank) with a pump sitting on the tank floor to provide upward flow. In this case, the anvil is pulled off the fire, swung over the tank and lowered into the water over the pump. If the anvil is in a coal forge, it will already be hanging face down anyway. The flow from the pump should break the steam blanket and allow the hot mass to quench quickly.

Those Little Giant pumps they sell at WW Grainger or Home Depot as sump pumps would probably work fine in this application. It would not take much effort or expense to build a little jib crane with a winch and trolley, a long fabricated firepot to allow heating the whole face and create the tank setup above.

Maybe someone will go into business rehardening anvils...

[Fe-Wood]

interesting approach Hwooldridge-

I have a 250 gallon stock tank sitting in front of my shop that is now full of water from the recent rains. Hmmmm, I have 3 or 4 small fountain pumps too. I would consider setting up for this as I have two anvils I will be repairing, It would be nice to re temper the faces, thats always the best way to go. Aaron Simmons is about a 1.5 hours drive from me so the market for tempering anvils around here my not be so good....

[Dragons lair]

evfreek, on 10 March 2010 - 03:00 PM, said:

Hi Ken. Cast iron rod is pricey. This is not useful for most anvils.

Try ramweldingsupply or www.scottgrossstore.com

EV, Yes I don't even try to repair cast anvils. My post was to add to the cost of modern
exotic rods. Fortunatly I have a good stock of OLD Stultz rods. Both underlay and hardface
impact resistant with a great color match. I use the cast tig rod for antique restorations.
Ken.