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I Forge Iron

Vwzach182

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  1. The face is a separate piece of tool steel plate that was forge welded to the top of the wrought iron body. After the wrought iron anvil was shaped, it was heated to forge welding temperatures along with the face and then the two pieces were placed together and struck with a machine to pound the two together. In the very very old days and in smaller scale operations this was done by a team of men all taking turns hitting the top with sledge hammers to forge weld the top plate to the anvil. If I remember correctly, the Peter Wright facility used water-powered striking equipment for the forging process.
  2. Looks good! I am currently building my first gas forge at a slow pace. I've built a couple of foundry furnaces/ vertical forges using homemade refractory and a Harbor Freight weed burner which worked pretty well but they were both really inefficient with fuel and retaining heat.
  3. The original weight would have been 150 lbs. 1 x 112 lbs (hundredweights)+ 1 x 28 lbs (quarter hundredweights) + 10 lbs. A replacement section of steel plate welded along the edges would act differently than one solid lump of metal since the plate and the wrought iron beneath would not be attached across the entire surface. You also would run the risk of ruining the hardness of the surrounding plate due to the welding temps.
  4. The original weight would have been 150 lbs. 1 x 112 lbs (hundredweights)+ 1 x 28 lbs (quarter hundredweights) + 10 lbs. A replacement section of steel plate welded along the edges would act differently than one solid lump of metal since the plate and the wrought iron beneath would not be attached across the entire surface. You also would run the risk of ruining the hardness of the surrounding plate due to the welding temps.
  5. I imagine it would have been pretty rich haha, Thanks for the tips, I hear silver solder is a little better when it comes to resistance to heat as opposed to lead solder but I'm sure when the burner turns chimney the intense heat would melt any solder. That is good to know that the nipple inner diameter may need to be reduced slightly. I may end up building a burner with the tip mounted in the end of the nipple in the future, possibly some type of modified side arm burner such as the ones shown on the Zoeller page. For now I plan to start with a Reil style burner with a mig contact tip mounted in the sidewall of the 1/8 nipple aimed down the center of the reducing bell but I have not seen a single picture anywhere of the mounting style although I'm sure its been done before.
  6. Forgive me if this question has been asked before but I could not find the exact answer using the search feature. I am buying a few parts in order to build a 3/4" tube Ron Reil style burner. I plan on installing a mig welder tip rather than drilling a hole in the 1/8 nipple. My question is whether I would be better off using a brass 1/8" nipple or black iron. I plan on drilling and tapping for the mig tip and I want to make sure that the brass nipple sidewall would be sturdy enough to tighten the tip in place. Ideally the tip would be removable/changeable, but I will most likely be brazing the tip in place as well or using sealant at a minimum. Anyone have any pics of a mig tip installed in an open back type of burner? I really like the Anvilfire "Guru's burner" method of mounting but I really would like to have the option of using a choke plate.
  7. I am by NO means an expert at anvil repair but I am great at fixing really broken things in general. I would have to say that your only hope would be to use what is left of the face as is. It may be possible to weld a section of heavy square tube stock vertically to the rear portion to use as a makeshift hardy hole if you really wanted to. I think that any attempt to rebuild the missing section and make it look close to original would be really tough without re-forging the entire anvil with a new chunk of iron to add. Depending on the condition of the remaining face it could work really well for you without any repair.
  8. Hi Thomas, I think I do remember reading something about your Foster anvil at some point during my lurking here. It is certainly one of the older ones that I have been able to find online. I really enjoyed seeing some of the abused anvil pictures to help me feel even better about mine being just a little chipped :) Here are a few pics of the hole. I'm not sure if it was to help cool the face during tempering or if it was to help keep the cast iron from doing weird things while casting or quenching, maybe both. The hole seems to be exactly 8 inches deep.
  9. I can't wait til my wife sees the WD-40 overspray marks on the porch floor haha
  10. Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it! It seems as though Monomoit was correct in another post, when it rains it really does pour anvils! I have been asking my Father-in-law for two years if he has an anvil hiding in his father's workshop somewhere. His father worked at the dump in town for many years in the 30's and 40's and brought home anything antique that came in. When I started my search for an anvil two years ago he was the first person I asked but unfortunately he did not have one. On Thanksgiving the first thing he said to me when he walked in was "Hey, where did you get that anvil on the porch? You should have asked me, I have one just like it that's been sitting in the garage since I was a kid!" Go figure... So I now have my second anvil only a few days after my first! (technically on permanent loan) It's 140 lb cast iron with a tool steel top, very similar in construction and design to an older Fisher. It has a raised five pointed star cast on one side, a round notch on the rear foot area directly below the heel, and a "V" cast into the front foot area below the horn. I have id'd it as an "American Star" brand anvil from Trenton, NJ. This was confirmed by the presence of a very deep (7 or 8 inches) "tempering hole" directly in the bottom of the anvil. This was unique to American Star anvils and was a patented technique to aid in the tempering of the steel top plate I believe. American Star manufactured anvils from the early 1850's to the late 1860's. It has a pretty descent rebound but not quite as good as my William Foster, and like Fisher anvils, it does not ring which is a nice option to have in the shop.
  11. Hi everyone! This is my first post but I have been reading and searching through several of the forums for a while now. Just wanted to introduce myself and show off my 1st anvil. I just picked this up on Tuesday and after a little cleaning and research I have id'd it as a William Foster and can just make out most of the date as 184*. Can't make out the final digit of the year but looks like it could be 1844. It has some of the marking of a single crown with William Foster printed side by side which I have not seen in other pics (most others have the 1st and last name stacked). On the opposite side I can only make out the last part of the weight markings as a "16". I weighed it on my really cheap bathroom scale as about 177 lbs. Going by the old english weight system a final digit of 16 would have made this anvil originally 184 lbs. The plate is chipped a bit right at the heel but it looks worse in the picture than it really is. The face is really flat across the entire anvil with no noticeable swayback at all. I love it and I only paid $75 for it! I'll post more pics when I have time to clean it up a bit more.
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