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What do you think of this anvil repair approach?


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Unfortunately if you have a decent sized anvil that won't work as the steam blanket will keep the water off the face for long enough to miss the hardening nose---especially with the plain old steels used in older anvils. You have to have water under pressure to beat through the steam to the face at the very beginning.

Traditionally they used water coming down from a height like a water tower or flume to get the force needed.

Now is there any other low tech problems we can help you with?

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You are forgetting the fact that when it hits the mud the clams will all be alarmed enough to shoot pressurized salt water onto the face(provided The ledge is high enough for the requisite number of flips to get it to land face down).

You guys talk like this is my first anvil repair(if this qualifies as one). :)

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HWooldrige-
If I mess up the temper, I hope you can share some techniques with me. I will be doing a steel ball test after the repair to see how I do. Currently my rebound is about 80%. PW's don't seem to have the sharp ring of a Trenton either which is nice.


Thomas hit the nail on the head about the steam blanket. Once you get the anvil to critical temp, you need a source of sufficient water to remove the heat quickly enough to harden the face. I can tell you that an old overhead fuel tank filled with water works quite well (and I'd bet a fire hose would, too) but dropping one into something like a big cattle trough with only minimal agitation can cause cracks because the cooling effect is uneven. A large volume of water descending quickly over the entire anvil is the key to a good face.

I once used two 55 gallon drums and a couple of big wheelbarrows along with a garden hose to quench a 250 lb anvil. The face got quite hard except around the hardy, which did not cool fast enough. Before we started, I was worried we didn't have enough water and that it would be an issue, so I concentrated the pour onto the main part of the face. A few anvils later, I did a 180 lb Mousehole with an old fuel tank that had a 6" pipe outlet. It put out plenty of volume and the whole face got hard.
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Easy enough to do.
Build a fire around the anvil on the ledge next to the cove.
When hot enough(try to time it for high tide,that`s important)take one of the tree trunks you dragged up for the fire and push the anvil off the ledge and into the cove.
Wait for low tide and get the clammers to help you drag it back to the shop.

Any other high tech problems I can help you guys with? B)



Hmmm-
I got a river close buy, should be in flood stage in June with ice cold snow melt.... No clams though :(
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I have always thought that if someone were doing a lot of anvils and wanted to set up for that purpose, a good method might be to have a large water tank, maybe on the order of 1000 gallons (like a large stock tank) with a pump sitting on the tank floor to provide upward flow. In this case, the anvil is pulled off the fire, swung over the tank and lowered into the water over the pump. If the anvil is in a coal forge, it will already be hanging face down anyway. The flow from the pump should break the steam blanket and allow the hot mass to quench quickly.

Those Little Giant pumps they sell at WW Grainger or Home Depot as sump pumps would probably work fine in this application. It would not take much effort or expense to build a little jib crane with a winch and trolley, a long fabricated firepot to allow heating the whole face and create the tank setup above.

Maybe someone will go into business rehardening anvils... :P

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interesting approach Hwooldridge-

I have a 250 gallon stock tank sitting in front of my shop that is now full of water from the recent rains. Hmmmm, I have 3 or 4 small fountain pumps too. I would consider setting up for this as I have two anvils I will be repairing, It would be nice to re temper the faces, thats always the best way to go. Aaron Simmons is about a 1.5 hours drive from me so the market for tempering anvils around here my not be so good....

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Hi Ken. Cast iron rod is pricey. This is not useful for most anvils.

Try ramweldingsupply or www.scottgrossstore.com

EV, Yes I don't even try to repair cast anvils. My post was to add to the cost of modern
exotic rods. Fortunatly I have a good stock of OLD Stultz rods. Both underlay and hardface
impact resistant with a great color match. I use the cast tig rod for antique restorations.
Ken.
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  • 1 year later...

How does one go about estimating the amount of rod needed for a build up? I'm currently planning to repair my Wilkinson anvil ( see here ) but can't figure out how many pounds of this rod or that to buy. The face plate measures approximately 4"x14" and is less than a quarter-inch. I was thinking about building up a .500" surface.

Is .500" too thick? Too thin? Would one ten-pound box of Stoody be sufficient? I'm keen to get started and will have the remainder of the paint burned off this evening....

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