GreenMt.Forge

For sure, I'll have to ask my neighbor if he has such a book. Surely he does. He's a good welding teacher. 

Thanks, Frosty. I'll find what I can. I've read on the stoody rods more, I hope I can find them or similar impact resistant/work hardening rods.

From what has been reccomended on here it's looking like just welding a hard surface filler on may be the way to do it. If I can't find the same rods as were mentioned in the Gunther/Schuler method I will find what I can with similar rockwell. 

Farenheit, Thomas Powers. I have chromium alloy hard surface rods. But I will get whatever is best. I'm reading on this every day. 

Yeah, and regarding the heat treat, what temperature would produce the best result? I've read about 1500-1550 would be ideal.

Thank you for the input, Frosty. That's what I'll do. Don't wanna wreck this beauty.

The plan was to bevel the plate about 1 inch in on each side and fill that with weld. The face is about 3 inches across. That was also my concern but he seems to think it would be fine. 

I have not. My welder/fabricator neighbor buddy says I should have the remaining face milled off, leaving a nice flat surface to weld a qt400 plate on afterwards with the stick welder.

6 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Have you read up on the PROVEN anvil repair method of Robb Gunther and Karl Schuler? 

No, I have never heard of that method. I will look it up, any info on this is super helpful and I appreciate any input at all. I don't know why I didn't join a forum like this years ago when I was just starting out on my piece of railroad track.

I have very little experience forge welding, I wanted to get a group of guys together and have a sort of "barn raising" type deal. There is a blacksmith nearby with many years experience. As I'm fairly young and being mostly self-taught/youtube/book/trial and error i wanted to find someone who had more experience.

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

I suggest you watch the video of when they did that at SOFA and they took 4 tries and had a team with over 100 years cumulative experience.

If you can find it also look up the videos on "cajun blackened anvil" where a group tried to forge weld on a new face and ended up burning up the body badly.

I have watched every video I could find on the subject. I'm also very fortunate to have more than adequate tools for the job as far as the heavy lifting and fabricating goes. I also have made friends with several old farriers/blacksmiths in the area. I promise I wont ruin the anvil, if the forge welding is not going to work, I have asked my neighbor who is a professional welder if we could weld a hard surface plate on. Even then it would still need to be heat treated. 

If I never try something that involves taking risk, how will I learn? The best teacher is failure in my experience. Though I strive for success, failure is always there, waiting for me. 

4 hours ago, njanvilman said:

That serial number puts it in 1901.

Thank you, help is much appreciated.

6 hours ago, Steve Sells said:

wont matter if the face is hardened or not after welding it will need re hardening good luck

I am Aware of that, what I meant was weld a tool steel plate to the face, then harden it.

I recently found a Hay budden Anvil, weighed about 150 before the faceplate broke off. Out of interest, I wanted to know the age of it. The serial number is 74345, located on the front of the base, under the horn. I'll try and post a couple pictures here as well. Also, regarding the busted face plate, I plan on forge welding a new hardened steel plate on the top.