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Forklift tine anvil, heat treat?


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Hello, i am just getting into bladsmithing and have decided to make my own anvil out of a scavenged (25$) forklift tine. I am open to any suggestions on how to improve the design i have laid out in the pictures.

I kind of want to put in a hardy tool hole but i don t really know how to go about it.

Back to the main topic, should i heat treat in any way the top layer to make it more resilient to the pounding before i weld it all together.

Thank you

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Unless you can get full thickness welds, with propped pre and post heat and heat treat, using one section on end is the best bet, the other peices are sertainly good stock for other stuff, even a top for a mild steel body anvil (fully welded and heat treated) that heavy of a peice welded to a big hunk of mild should water quench, otherwise fallow the directions in "The Compleat Modern Blacksmith. 

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Ok so here is a sketch of what i plan on having as a finished product. I want to use the whole tine for weight as i don t have a mild steel anvil to weld a portion to. I have access to a welder and can get the whole thing welded solid with filet welds, after 100% prepped of course. I know it's a lot of work but i want to have a good, heavy anvil that will last.

The fork tips (welded to each side) would dig into the stump after being drawn in by the come along pulling the whole thing down to the stump by the fork rings.

Now my next question, should i weld a bunch of smaller pieces on end as shown in the sketch or just heat treat the top flat piece and weld it on?

For heat treat what temp should i heat to and how long before quench?

Thanks

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it is no good HT then welding,

welds should go right to the center of the material not just round the edge

all those pieces stacked on the top would mean alternate hard and soft bits on the face as the weld material will not be the same

the face of your anvil only needs to be a little bigger that the face of your hammer

one piece stood on end will be fine, you can add mass by welding the rest of it accross the bottom like van upside down T

 

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you. I'm afraid I have to inform you you've fallen into a trap beginners often do. You have an image of what you THINK a good anvil looks like and tried to make it from something that already was an excellent anvil. Had you only cut it enough to have the bend at the correct working height for you you could have then welded the trimmed rem lengthwise under the bend. You wouldn't need full pen welds seeing as the steel was on end all it needs is well stuck together. The force from hammer blows will be conducted through the length of the steel and give you OUTSTANDING depth of rebound. Keep some of the cut off to make feet from, you'll need to calculate working height and include the thickness of the feet but that's simple arithmetic.

Leaving say 4"-6" of the bend extending beyond the now welded on section gives you an excellent tail to form over and around, say clips or staple shapes. A very handy shape.

You don't need a hardy hole on the anvil a portable hole is actually more versatile. Just a length of sq. tubing welded to a base with the top end reinforced to thicken the wall and resist hammering, etc. Use sq. tubing around 2" or larger for the main body of the portable hole so you can make lots of different final holes for different uses.

Unfortunately stacking late as you have seriously reduces it's effectiveness unless you couple th em with full penetration welds. Believe it or not you could probably buy a brand new high quality anvil for about the same price as having that welded up let alone heat treated.

Do you have the other fork tine? Please don't repeat this mistake.

I'm not picking on you because you're the new guy, we all made this type mistake starting out. Not this one specifically necessarily but I still have a stack of grader edge I was going to do this with. Someone else was talking about how lousy an anvil stacked plates make and I decided to learn from his mistake. Nobody's born knowing this stuff and nobody is going to live long enough to learn it all.

Frosty The Lucky,

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Wow, i can t actually believe i made such a mess of such a viable piece of quality steel. I now see my error. Any amount of air between the steel layers, even atomical in size will result in a deader anvil. Who would ve thunk!? I may have access to the other tine but it is fairly narrow and would like to locate a thicker one for a bigger face down the road. I guess i' ll just have to use the bend i still have for the time being, until i decide on buying another tine, buying an actual manufactured anvil or full pen welding the pieces i have...

Thanks for all your help everyone.

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Ah, as mistakes go it ain't nothing, join the club.B)  The fork lift tine anvil the Grammar Hammer linked is a nice one and less work than many. Don't toss it, that's a stack of excellent die stock and if you have the saw available and don't mind a little forging slices represent a BUNCH of handy tooling.

Frosty The Lucky.

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You are still OK, you just need to restack what you have. Take two of the pieces and turn them on edge, then lay one piece flat across the top. Gap them enough so that you can reach all the way through with the welding electrode to get a 100% penetration weld.  If you keep the top under 350°F you shouldn't affect the original heat treating. The forklift manufacturers that I contacted said that they use 4xxx series steels like 4340, so I would treat its such. To do a heat treat for greater hardness you can toss it into a bonfire,or a ceramics kiln to get it up to temp, then quench. Quenching will take a ton of agitated water, or a high pressure stream from a fire hose/pressure washer, so probably best to just use as is , and just make sure the metal is not too cold when working  on it. Then again, you are in the Great White North. Next winter build a fire at the top of an ice slope, get it hot, then bobsled it down the hill ;)

Method #2 would be to weld the stack, then turn it on end. 

I would tend to keep the tip separate and use it like a thin heel/horn

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6 hours ago, Ozzyris said:

I may have access to the other tine but it is fairly narrow and would like to locate a thicker one for a bigger face down the road.

Keep your eyes out for other options, but remember that strictly speaking, the anvil face doesn't need to be any bigger than the face of the hammer. Think of the matched top and bottom dies of a power hammer: they're generally the same size, or close to it.

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I set a 8# sledge into concrete and beat on that for a while with no ill effects. You can take one of your pieces and set it in concrete to height and you will have a real good anvil for bladesmithing.

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