Repair this anvil?

[poleframer]

Well, what do you think? The front third of the faceplate is coming off, its hollow under the broken section, but solid from there back to the hardy hole. Options are to use it while I look for another, or try to repair it. Looks like somebody had tried to weld around it at some point in the past. Could get a big fire going, and try to re-forge weld it back in place, or toss the broken piece, heat the body up and use hardfacing or some other rod to build it back up and grind a new surface. ???
Thanks, Russell

[Timothy Miller]

Use it till it breaks. Then build up with hard facing. A forge weld of that size is a major job and getting the heat treatment right is going to require a large amount of flowing water.

[ThomasPowers]

Depending on what type of smithing you will be doing that anvil; could last a lifetime or be broken next week.

I'm with the "use it until"

Note that most of the pro anvil repairers don't advocate hardfacing but other rods as hardfacing doesn't usually have the right properties and many types will spider web crack on cooling---not a problem on a loader or backhoe; but not wanted on an anvil face.

If Pep comment's on this one I would go with his recommendations as he re faced an anvil that had had the face milled down to too thin and repaired a 410# anvil of mine that had been abused at a copper mine and both repairs have worked very well indeed! (He teaches welding and is a great smith to boot!)

[ArtWerkz]

You could always use the #22 hard facing rods from Sodel, these are slightly different than the usual HF rods used for hoe buckets, teeth etc. These rods are for metal to metal contact and are designed for high impact. The only thing is I have found that you can only run about 2 beads on top of each other. Having said that if you have to build up an area build a cushion layer with 7018's or the like. Hope this helps.
Cheers

[P. Bedard]

Has anyone else here ever used 29/9 dissimilar electrodes for repairing anvil faces?
Two of mine got that treatment and they were, literally, brought back from the dead.
I highly recommend them. No heating the anvil first. Get a welder who knows what he's doing though.

[poleframer]

Sounds interesting, Spikeknife, did you do the welding? I'm curious about the rod size and amperage used. Seems like I'd want to bring it up to some temp, 400 or so. HF seems the best alternative, I read a little about the dissimilar electrodes, makes sense. I could hammer around it, but repair will be on my mind all the time. I suppose if I had been using it,broke it, and was living with it (brings my old trucks to mind) I might be more inclined to put off unnecessary repairs. No hurry, I enjoy the learning to anything.
Russell

[pkrankow]

I have read about the stuff that is laid down to pad hard face rod. It's almost as hard, but more forgiving and less prone to cracking. I think it was on a mfg website, but can't remember where. I read a bunch about making/rebuilding an anvil while looking for an anvil.

Hard face is meant to be abrasion resistant, which is not really needed on an anvil, impact resistance is more important.

$0.02

Phil

[Steve McCarthy]

This might help.

Robb Gunter anvil repair.pdf

[ThomasPowers]

No preheat? How do you keep from getting brittleness in the HAZ as the anvil "auto-quenches"?

[Frosty]

I have read about the stuff that is laid down to pad hard face rod. It's almost as hard, but more forgiving and less prone to cracking. I think it was on a mfg website, but can't remember where. I read a bunch about making/rebuilding an anvil while looking for an anvil.

Hard face is meant to be abrasion resistant, which is not really needed on an anvil, impact resistance is more important.

$0.02

Phil

It's called "build up rod" and is substantially harder than most joining rod like 7018, etc. It's purpose is to bake a non-brittle layer under hardfacing where a lot of thickness is needed. It is HARD and impact resistant, big time. Think of it this way and for a demo simply place a sheet of glass on a piece of 1" foam rubber and press down in the center. The glass is going to break from excessive flexing. This is just what hardfacing will do if laid on a bed of soft steel or common welding rod. Next demo place a similar sheet of glass on a clean wooden table top and press as hard as you want in the center, the glass won't break until the rable collapses. This is why build up rod is hard, to prevent the really hard and brittle abrasion resistant hardfacing rod from being over flexed.

Build up rod is also non-hazardous to your health compared to most hard facing rods. Of course you have to take basic precautions to avoid breathing the smoke but some hard facing rods contain chrome and other BAD for you to breath things.

Were I going to do this repair I'd buy a roll of 0.064" core-flux build up wire and just lay it on. If it didn't want to stick to the wrought iron body I'd be surprised but would lay a single pass of 7018 for the build up wire to bond to as a solution.

I'd probably just use the anvil till the rest of the face delaminated before trying a repair.

Frosty the Lucky

[poleframer]

Getting in a little hammer time, the piece is delaminated, goes from a "ping ping" to a "tok tok" sound as soon as I get on the other side of the crack, towards the horn. It's the weld around the edge that's holding it on. Of course the crack in the face is right where ya want to hammer.
I don't have a mig, just the miller genset (CC, 250AC, 200DC), and a little gasless wirefeed.
So it's pretty much a matter of rod choice, and treatment I want to figure out, before I get into it. I think a little grinding, and a smack from the side would knock the piece off.
So, sounds like when I tackle it, I should prep the surface, put it in the stove for a while, get it up to 400, lay a pad of 7018, then build up to flush with the rest of the face with ? rod.
Thanks for the replies, Russell

[ironwolfforgeca]

Poleframer NO !!! on the hard face rod ! wrong rod for anvil fix, It looks like brazing rod repair bad thing if it is ? or mite be stainless ?? thats better still not right though can't tell till I see it ?-- read up on anvil repair on this & anvilfire site's

Now if you want it fix right I can do that :<) Ive fixed over 35 + anvil or so and all very happy customers some are in teaching class being use by folks that have no Idea what there doing and the anvil is still in great shape
YEARS LATTER I make it a point to ck my repair work if I get near an anvil I have work with
I am now putting in a 1" hardie shim in are high school anvil again 5 years later the kid chiseled it out I think
this time it 100% kid proof welding time lol I did the edges back then to there still in great shape got fix the hardie so my tools work on it

well I am just down the road a bit or give me a call I can give you more info STEVE'S Welding

[mike-hr]

I'll step out on a brittle limb here, and say that Steve (IronWolf) is THE GUY
on the west coast that I trust implicitly for Gunter process anvil repair.
I did an old trenton anvil with the stoody rod 10 yrs ago, I got so tired of
working on that thing, I could have made out mowing lawns until i had money
to buy a new Nimba. It seems every year Steve brings a Peter Wright to a hammer-in
that's honestly good-as-new. Then he shows the pictures of the before, boy howdy!
I don't know where he gets the patience to do that kind of work, but I'm glad he
enjoys it..

[Sam Thompson]

Has anyone else here ever used 29/9 dissimilar electrodes for repairing anvil faces?
Two of mine got that treatment and they were, literally, brought back from the dead.
I highly recommend them. No heating the anvil first. Get a welder who knows what he's doing though.

I've used dissimilar rods to repair the edges of my current anvil: I ground the metal back, propped the anvil at a convenient angle and laid the weld on using a hard facing type of weave. I peened the deposit well between passes and again before grinding to shape; so far (3 years) it has held up very well.