My wife has an uncle tha'ts retired from the railroad and I scored some rail off him through my father-in-law over Christmas. I've been coming up with some ideas on how to make it into an anvil. I don't have an anvil yet and want to work the planning out on this one so it might last me a while. It's a little over 3' long and weighs about 130 lbs. So it's one of the heavier rails produced in North America.
I went back and forth on building horizontal or vertical.... back and forth. Talk to this guy, read online... call a blacksmith... yada yada. So I've decided to go vertical and since I have over 3' I can cut it to exactly knuckle height and it be tailored to my hammer blow. The question I'm asking myself now is how to secure it. I have enought material to take the stump out of the situation (oh yeah, got a stump when I thought I was going to go horizontal).
So here's what I'm thinking...
I can fabricate a stand that allows the bottom of the rail to rest on my concrete slab. 2 things, is that solid enough, and will that eventually crack the slab.
I can put it in a bucket and fill with concrete... will this lessen the rebound force of the anvil? And how secure do you think it will be?
I was also thinking I could get an old spare rim or something and use that as a base, but figured that would lose some of the force.
I am up for thoughts and ideas on how to secure it. And if you think a 3' tall railroad anvil is worth it. Should I just cut it down to fit my stump and secure it that way (Stump is about 18" high). Just figured the more mass I can keep the better it would work.
Brent
p.s this picture is a mock up of how I want to fab it. I plan to have a hot cut, fuller, two horns and weld some square tubing as a hardy hole. If I use some of my drop I can use the top of the rail for the round horn and the base as the square horn. What do you think?
Oh, and I was thinking of welding this stick with some 7018. WIth proper preheat and post do you think I will have any problems. I also can MIG or run some flux-core.