downsfish

So did you get it finished? Where are the pics/video? I also live just south of Birmingham, I've HT'd a couple of anvils I built on nightshift at the Steel Mill where I work. Do you still need the help.

Typically to start a new Hobbie/Trade you have to purchase the tools, equipment, materials required to perform it. This is really the only Hobbie/Trade where you could start with someones discarded trash and make the tools you need to make the tools to accomplish your intended goal. The awesome part is that the entire time you're building up the tool set, you're actually performing the Hobbie/Trade. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Love the anvil stand, love the REBAR tongs (for reasons other than aesthetics), and mostly I love to see your daughter out with her old man playing in the shop, keep it up dood.

I thought I'd cut some 2" plate about 4" X 12" and weld them under the anvil at 90 deg, one close to the hardy hole and one at the pritchels. That would automatically give me 3 pads with 90 deg V blocks about 4" square two on the near side and only one on the far, because the shelf I welded on at the face would be directly above the one. I guess the far side should be left plain for upsetting and probably 4 different half rounds 2 on each of the near sides? I only used the mill to clean up the face and drill the holes, the tapers and the horn were all torch cut before the heat treat. The steel would've become high grade rebar but it had too much Cr, and Van in it which would make it too hard so it was scrapped.

OK so I'm building my second anvil and I'd like some design input, kinda like you helped Grant with his "Tooling Anvil ?". It started life as a 5 1/2" X 5 1/2" billet 3 feet long and I'd planned on putting feet under it for upsetting like Hofi's anvils. So here's the question, what do you think about making the feet with different bottom dies like a swage block? What do you think would be the most versitile shapes?

Update: I finally got around to heat-treating it last night with pretty good results, they're not exactly what I expected though. I soaked it in the furnace for about 2 1/2 hours, then pulled it out and threw it in the water flume (which is flowing substantial water) and viola. Well kinda, actually when I threw it in it got hung up on the chain and just the tip (4 inchs) of the horn went in the water. So I unhooked it and laid it in the water on it's side, about 6" deep, which left the welded on part poking up out of the water. I then turned an 1 1/2" water hose on the top side because it didn't have much water covering it. Looking at the RHC #'s I've put on with soapstone you can see that the softer side and the ends were well under the water and the harder side (except for the step ?) got the hose.

I work maintenance in a roll mill and this is a common occurance, maybe an average of 3 or 4 times in a 12 hour shift, depending mostly on what size is running. The smaller the product the harder it is to get it to the end, the difference between pushing a rope or a spaghetti noodle. Every set of rolls it goes through reduces it's diameter by maybe 10 to 20 percent, but that material has to go somewhere, so it grows in length. Which means it also picks up speed by that same 10 to 20 percent every millstand it goes through, in our mill there's 18 millstands. The 5-1/2" billet enters #1 at about 2 mph and exits #18 as a 180' long railroad spike 1600 degrees travelling about 40+ mph. So as you can imagine that it doesn't take a much of problem to cause a cobble. I would guess that an average cobble takes about 30 min to clean up and get back to running, not a very fun part of the process.

Update: I ended up with a torch after trying many different ways to remove the drift, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be and i didn't damage the anvil. I'd rather be lucky than good. So the hole is square about 3" down, then turns back to round. A little bit of clean up to the face and I'll be ready to heat treat, then I'll weld on a couple of feet, which will be two pieces of billet about 12" long welded crossways with a gap between, so that I'll have a place to upset with. It should end up about 300 lbs. and look like Mr. Hofi's.

Keep it coming guys, we love this stuff

Hey man I like em, I love to see rebar being used.

Hey Matt, that's pretty cool I'll have to play with the whole ?electrolysis? thing. I know a lot of guys use it to etch but it looks like cleans real well also. Your pics are too big, next time re-size them and they look better. Glad to see you here Bro.

I'm in Alabama which is only a stones throw away from him (somewhere in MS). I'm sure like everything else in life when i finally save up enough to buy some of his time he'll have moved. When I have the money I don't have the time. When I have the time I don't have the money.

Amen brothers, THAT is a VICE

I’m with Bob, “new steel” I guess would be smelted iron ore from the ground, nearly all steel today is made from scrap. It is cheaper, easier, faster, safer, more convenient, better for the environment, etc. Once a car/refrigerator/bicycle/lawnmower/broken wrench becomes liquid they’ve definitely lost their former identities and become “steel”. At this point it’s easy to separate the impurities and add whatever is needed to create any type of steel required. I work at a steel mill where about 85% of our finished product is rebar; some of it is poor quality by the customer’s request. But by far the majority is good steel going for things like DOT projects, Nuclear, Wind Turbines, etc. that must meet certain specs. Each Mill puts identifying marks on their finishing rolls, so every revolution that mark is made on the bar, the distance between marks depends on the size of the roll, about 3 feet is our average. Here’s a link that explains it pretty well. http://www.dot.state.il.us/materials/rebarguide.pdf

We just took my oldest daughter to school in Idaho from Alabama, 36 hours each way of CLOSE family time. On the trip back as I filled up I noticed an Antique shop next door, so we stretched our everythings for about an hour and I found this vise outside with the "junk". I love junk.

Yea the furnace is about 30'x 40', we're pushing out 5 1/2" billets about 28' long. I'm using an inspection door for my anvils which works great unless I get a call. I'm a millwright and as long as everything's running good I can usually get some time to play around, but when it breaks it's GO time. Well I've got it upside down with the drift in a bucket of salty ice-water, I've put a port-a-power on top to drive it out. I figure I'll let it soak for a couple of hours and keep feeding it ice, then I'll hit the anvil with a rosebud and push it right out, sounds easy huh.

Bigfoot: I hadn't really tried to get it out other than at the time, so I'll start with brute force and then move onto whatever else comes next. We've talked about getiing some liquid nitrogen for bushings and such but so far the safety geeks have put the kiebosh on it, so I'll try the CO idea, thanks. Sam: yes it is, but I'm hoping I can find something else first. more to come....

For reasons that I can't quite explain I decided to make the hardy in the anvil I'm building by driving a square drift into a round hole. Eveything was going fine yesterday, I pulled it out of the furnace and got the drift about 40% into (then back out of) the hole without a problem, then ran out of time. Last night I got one of the guys to "help" me, and his "easy" and mine are very different. So while I was tapping it in he went to hitting and before I could say (insert bad words here) it was way too deep, so I turned it over and cooled the end of the drift with air to try to drive it out. That's when I had to go fix something in the Mill which of course explains why the anvil and the drift are now one. It's funnier now then it was last night, and I'm confident that'll continue on. So laugh with me, or even at me and enjoy the pics. Updates to follow :D

OOPS! Twice I put the drift in, a little deeper each heat, the third time I went in just a little too far. I know it was too far in because it's still in there, and now it's stuck. I'll post the pics when I get home from work.

Hey that's a great idea, I think the'll sell like hotcakes.

I like it, great job.

Outstanding job, I love the attention to detail, that really is a wonderful piece.

Great pics, one of these days I'm going to come over and spend some time with you guys, that's a threat not a promise.

Wow, thanks for all of the ideas, it's funny how some are so simple that I should've thought or them myself but couldn't see the forest for the trees.

I'm building an anvil out of a 5 1/2" square billet patterned after Mr. Hofi's. I've drilled a 1 1/4" hole for my hardie and was wondering if you think I could hand drift it to a square once I put a small hole, say 1/4", in each corner? I was thinking of some kind of fluted four point drifts to move the material and end up with a slightly smaller (maybe 1") square. I should preface this by saying that I don't have much experience with drifting thick material, and 5 1/2" seems more than a little problematic. I don't know enough to know that this may be a foolish idea, which hasn't stopped me in the past, it just makes the learning curve more like a circle. I'd like to use a broach but I don't have that kind of dough, and there's got to be a way faster than filing. Here's some pics, tell me what you think even if it'll hurt my last feeling.