Show me your anvil

[Daswulf]

Looks like a lil rr track anvil. I'm sure you got a good deal on it. Nice find. 

[John McPherson]

ThomasP, you lucky dog (or werebear, IDK), that is a military wagon or pack mule anvil. Worth serious $$$ to a collector.

[ThomasPowers]

As I suspected, it's stamped US, and at a foot of steel tall it would have had to been a most unusual rail!  Still looking it up; as I know I've seen a picture of one before!

Probably right here: 

 

[ZachNiedjalski]

Just finished resurfacing my railroad anvil.  Its still in the process, as you can see i still need to cut out for the horn, and then add a hardy hole.  I welded some plate steel on the sides of the track and filled it with sand to (hopefully) reduce some of the noise.  Same with the stand i made, filled the legs with sand.

Any input? suggestions?  should work for my first anvil.  Mostly going to be bladesmithing.

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

So much work for so little return!  What the hammer "sees" is how much solid steel there is between the face and the base, Most of that looks to be very little solid steel indeed.  Please look at the improvised anvils thread on how to maximize the amount of solid steel beneath the hammer.  Why do you need a cut out for a horn for bladesmithing?  The curved top is what you will be using and cutting out underneath it is just making it more flexible when you want rigidity. I really wished you had run your ideas past us before you went to all that work!  A vertically mounted section of 4"x4" x 3' would be a much superior anvil for bladesmithing---no welding needed.

[ZachNiedjalski]

I was thinking about cutting out the horn in case i wanted to branch out from bladesmithing.  It was a lot of work, probably should have asked around first.  A main part of it was that i just bought a new welder and wanted to play around with it.  Ill definitely look at that thread.  Ill probably take your word for cutting out that horn though, didnt think of the whole flexibility vs rigidity. 

[Frosty]

Don't get so set in your vision of what an anvil is. London patterns are relatively recent patterns, about 200+ years out of a couple millennia of forging. As Thomas says what makes an anvil effective is how much steel Or iron is between the hammer's face and the stand. RR rail on end makes an excellent anvil with only a LITTLE grinding to smooth the face and ease the edge. If you check out the improvised anvils thread, Charles Stevens' modifications to the end of a piece of rail make a rail anvil actually more versatile than a London pattern. Your imagination and needs are the only limit to the bottom tools you can with a little grinding. The web and flanges represent just about every bottom tool out there.

I built one of my early rail anvils in a similar manner as yours but putting sand in it never occurred to me. I torched some rail free and welded it between the rail and flanges to make weight. Then I screwed up big time and welded a piece of plate on to be the face. A mistake in that it's much softer than rail and you don't need much more anvil face than you have hammer face. 

Then we get to horns and hardy holes. Horns aren't all that useful really, about the only thing I use one for is as a bottom fuller. I turn and true rings on the face. Start scrolls over the edge and turn them on the face. Etc. etc. Only the horn on my Soderfors is fine enough to use to widen and shape bottle openers and you should walk into that baby some time to get a gut (thigh really) feeling for why so many horns were hammered or ground flat. If you find you actually NEED a horn forge up a bickern to fit the portable hole. Easy Peasy.

A hardy  hole is more useful but rather than putting one in your anvil a portable hole is FAR handier. Google search "portable hole Iforge" to get some ideas of just how useful they are.  Probably the real down side to a portable hole is stability if you're doing some heavy bending at low temperature and need to put some serious torque on the bending forks.

When you get down to brass tacks an anvil is something you hammer against. Period, nothing more nothing less. Vikings were making spectacular swords and other smith work on lumps of iron or boulders. Modern Japanese sword smiths work on anvils that are around 4"-5" square lumps spiked to a block of wood or the ground.

I have to stop, I keep remembering anvils I've seen, used and improvised that didn't look diddly like a London pattern and they all, every darned one worked well beyond MY ability and skills.

I'm not getting on you here but it's a common dead end we all got sucked into to some degree or another and I'd save you the wasted: money, time, energy and disappointment.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Lou L]

If you put the railroad track on it’s end you can grind a radius into the center section and use that as a fuller.  That will handle the number one use for the bick on an anvil.  I hope you have bracing inside that long, flat section or it will deform.  It’s going to be loud too!

[ZachNiedjalski]

Thats some pretty good info, and no worries about the criticizm.  Im super new to this, and appreciate the blunt honesty.    Just got wrapped up in the size of the face i guess, figuring the bigger the better.  the whole anvil weighs about 80lbs i would guess.  I only minimally welded it to the base, so there is always the possibility of me cutting the welds and putting it on end

Lou, the bracing i have is the side walls i guess you would call them.  its not much, just 1/8 inch steel.  you think the track would warp that much?

[crenick]

126 pound Kohlswa. I now have it mounted on a stump with eye bolts and chain. 

[Ranchmanben]

That’s a fine looking specimen! Is there a weight stamped in it? I think I’ve got it’s sibling, it’s older and more used sibling. 

[crenick]

No stamp. I weighed it on a scale

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Stamp or not that's a fine anvil... welcome to the addiction.

[19Branden86]

Here's my anvil. I have a chunk of RR track with a horn made from a backhoe bucket pin. Good hard steel. The gusset is leaf spring steel (5160 I presume). The "horn" has a hole drilled through the head about halfway into the shaft and about 3 inches deep into the rail with some 4140 bar welded into it for added support. Drilled a pritchel hole into the back of the rail. The two rivet tie holes in the track, even though I don't have a picture of the finished product, I welded two more backhoe pins in there for some heavy duty turning cams. Works great and I can do just about anything. I have another chunk of steel not shown that had a square hole already machined into it that I welded some legs on for my Hardy tools. The slightly rounded face of the rail really moves steel and for planishing I use my Hardy anvil. In tandem with the two I can do just about anything. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

You new guys go threw a lot of work welding on hunks if rail to make mediocre anvils. The shape just is at an efecent use of mass in the original horizontal orientation. 

[19Branden86]

Mediocre is a matter of opinion, don't you think? If it works for the applications of the guy using it then who is anyone else to say it sucks?

[jlpservicesinc]

He's not saying it sucks..  He is saying there is a better way to mount it so it is more effective..

Please try to remember there are a lot of people here who have been there and done that on their way to finding a better way with less energy...

 

Standing that rail on end,  and welding on a larger diameter for the horn if really needed..

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

The web of a heavy gauge rail is about 3/4” and 8” high, lots of spring their, so all the work to either carve a horn and heal out of rail or the pre and post heat to weld the high carbon rail still creates an anvil that absorbed quit a bit of the energy from your hammmer blows. So a mediocre anvil. 

Turning the anvil vertical and using the head which is 1-1/2” x3” as your striking serface puts a much more substantial mass under the hammer, one can notch the flange to produce both a double horn bick 8” long with horns starting at about 7/8”, a lot less work for a super working anvil, if you need a long flat to straiten something it’s easy to hang the stock parallel to the head, look down to see where to strike and and do so.

as to who am I to judge a mediocre anvil design from a superior one? A guy who has been at this a wile and found out how not to do things, not a YouTube guru who is perpetuating mediocre anvil and forge designers. 

Do the two preceding rail anvils look servicible? Sure do, do they look to have been improved in praportion to the amount of work put into them? Not in my opinion. 

 

[eseemann]

5 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

The web of a heavy gauge rail is about 3/4” and 8” high, lots of spring

Mr. Charles,

Would welding additional mass between head and the base help? I know it will not add rebound since you can't expect a pile of mix and match steel welded together to have the same physics as a single hunk of the same steel forged for the task of being an anvil but I wonder would it help?

Ernest 

[jlpservicesinc]

@eseemann NO..  I'm not Mr Charles.. but the simple answer is no..  You have to look at how steel moves or doesn't move (flexes)..    There Is more mass in a linear function at the end of the rail if looking at the cross section (  T  ) verses the side..    Go look at a power hammer.. Or as a great example a Spencer tire hammer..  These are all mounted standing up verses flat as you get the most resistance this way.. 

This not only applies to anvils, but splitting blocks or stumps etc, etc.. 

If you want an easy example go out and take a small sapling about 2 ft long..  Hold it in one hand at the top and put the bottom against your boot on the ground.. Now push on the middle of it.. It will flex easily..    If it took a set straighten it..   Now with it straight up and down.. Just push on the very end of it.. It will resist your pressure much better now.. 

Steel has a lot of flex to it just not as much as wood.. 

 

[eseemann]

I thought that might have been the case, sounded too easy a fix. I picked out a 28" hunk of 2" square steel the other day and I was looking at it thinking I might make a stump anvil or the like until I hit it with a hammer. "thunk!" I thought to my self, this may not be cast iron (it was some kind of improvised tow bar in a past life) but it is not something you would want as a first choice for an anvil.

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, eseemann said:

Would welding additional mass between head and the base help?

Even if it did, you’ve just invested heavily in a result that will never be as good as simply standing it on end. Save your time, money, and materials for projects that will actually have a better ROI. 

[eseemann]

JHCC, as someone that suffers from "can't leave well enough alone" syndrome I can say 100% that yes, you are correct that can and has happened. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

You would get about as much benefits buy simply bolting a set of rail mending plates on for a lot less work and about as much benefit as welding. Welding compleatly threw heavy stock, especially high carbon stock that needs pre and post heat is a big pain and eats up a lot of rod and grinding wheals.

rail is great stock, impact resistant high carbon, but if you look at it as an anvil turn it on end and mofiy the flange and web, otherwise look at it as stock, a 3”x1-1/2” bar, a 3/4” wide bar and a bare that tapers from 7/8 to 3/8” from the middle to edges. From here you can make an anvil from rail iron and other tools. 

TJWhatts used a flange on an anvil welded up from mild steel as a tool steel face. The taper allowing him to reach in and weld compleatly from the center to the edges. He then heated the mas and mounted two 250g IBC totes on forklifts to quench the face (gravity to overcome the steel jacket) tested at RH 55-60. 

A 1- 1/2 square 3” long makes a mighty good hammer blank, flanges are the start of nice punches and hot cuts...

look at the just another rail iron thread 

A can’t leave well enough alone anvil.

[Charles R. Stevens]

So here we have chunks of rail, flange that can become cutting tools and punches. Flange and web to become a “T” stake or small double horn bick. A square section of head and web to be forged ( upset the web) into a hardy tool or small Viking style anvil. And finally a larger chunk of head and web to be forged into an anvil head for a post anvil project. 

I see rail with a 3/4” thick hunk of heavy truck spring welded on for a face (less carbon than the rail and only welded on the exeges) and other abominations, yourse is better than most, if you want to weld on that, cut a 6” chunk off, cut the head off and weld it on the remaining rail. Using the remaining head as a post. You still have to pre and post heat but now if you weld all the way threw (put a 3/8 rod in the middle to space the pieces and weld a pass from each side) you are moving in the right direction. Tho you end up with a lot of useful high carbon steel in the post that could make other tools.