Milling off anvil face...

[kevsauce]

Guys and gals,
Newbie here...just got a forge and avil stand built and set up in my barn. I bought a 150 pound Hay Budden in fairly rough shape....the face is uneven, and there aren't really any good edges left on the side. I figured I would just stick the anvil in one of my father's milling machines and mill off the surface till it is completely level and square....and at the same time that should square off the edges a little bit as well.
Is there anything "wrong" with doing it this way? I don't imagine I would need to take much more than 1/8" to 1/4" off the surface.
Thanks
-Kevin

PS I guess I'm not *totally* new...I always lurk around forums looking at everyone's setups and hand-made items and get jealous and angry that I don't have any time to devote to this but once every few weekends. :)

[pkrankow]

1) how thick is the anvil face? is there going to be 1/2 inch of face or more left when you are done?

2) consider skimming the feet, then flipping it over onto a level bottom to trim the top.

3) read these links before doing anything.

Link removed as per request The link suggests only that the amount of radius is personal taste. 

 

Phil

[kevsauce]

Phil,
I'm assuming you are asking about how much steel is left on the face? This I don't know - I'm assuming this is a standard iron anvil with steel face on top....but eh, I don't know how one tells where the steel ends and the iron begins.

[pkrankow]

you clean the side of the anvil and look for the weld line. You may need to etch the cleaned surface to see the parting line with some anvils. Some anvils only have 1/2 inch of face, others have more, some have the whole top half of the anvil as tool steel. Modern anvils are solid cast steel. If you take the thickness of the face much below 1/2 inch, it will not be strong enough to rebound properly, so welding will be a much better option.
Phil

[kevsauce]

Yep I couldn't see any kind of boundry from just looking at the side of it. I will have to etch into the side indeed to see. Thanks for the help...I was looking at the welding articles (and have browsed through them in the past) and that looks far too advanced/hard for someone like myself. I think I will stick by your guideline and if there's plenty of tool steel left, just mill off a portion.

[ThomasPowers]

Milling is the last possible thing you want to do on an anvil face! The hardened face of your anvil is "solid gold". You now want to mill off that gold and throw it away---generally a bad idea as you can throw away decades of use life in just minutes.

Also as mentioned if you absolutely must mill it off: first turn it upside down and mill the base parallel to the face. Anvils were forged on open dies and so no guarantee that the face and the base are parallel. I have seen an anvil where they didn't do this first and then proceeded to mill through the hardened face and into wrought iron to get it "level" (and why do you think you need it level in the first place?) I also have a friend who had his anvil milled and got it back with a beautiful face that was then too thin to use---totally trashed it until decades later he had a professional welder spend about 5-6 hours building back a usable face. (check the cost of welding for that much work!)

The old books tell you the first thing you do when you get a new anvil is to round the edges off as sharp edges tend to cause problems when you are smithing. So you want to put sharp edges on and then round them off again? if you need a sharp edge make a hardy tool that has an edge that will be right at the edge of your anvil. With access to milling machines you could make it to have 4 usable edges of different radii!

Note that the late anvils often used a single piece top with the face being merely the top of that heat treated---hard to tell how much "hard" is left. Did a previous owner throw some of it away too?.

I'd suggest cleaning it up slightly with a flap wheel on an angle grinder and using it a while before you decide to risk so much. You may find out that it's just fine as it is!

I was just doing a paying job of straightening a bunch of heavy tent stakes yesterday and I have an anvil with a face that's got just a slight dip in it that works a treat for that job as you want the piece to "go too far" and then bounce back to straight. Would have taken me twice to three times as long to straighten them if that anvil face had been flat. (and since so much of blademaking is straightening having such a swale is GREAT for bladesmiths!)

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

1-post some pictures so we can see what you have to work with.

2-in the gunsmith shop we removed a lot of dings by tapping the displaced metal back down. A dent has just moved metal where you do not want it. It can be worked back into position as long as metal has not been removed.

3-filling deep dents,and where material is missing with welding, will be better in the long run.

[kevsauce]

Thanks for the help guys - unfortunately I can't get at the anvil as it's at my father's and I can only get up there once every 2-3 weeks. I know...it's a sad thing but a tink tink of an anvil wouldn't go down so well here in my town. I will definitely get some pics when I can.
I *was* thinking of just having a hardy tool of just a steel block for good edges so that's a good point.

[ThomasPowers]

You may need to get a "quiet anvil" for town use. Fishers are great for this purpose; I have one and folks can't hear it off my property! They go thwap instead of *TING*.

Having spent 15 years forging in the inner city of Columbus OH where the houses were sometimes less than 20 feet apart from each other I can say there are ways around such issues! (and a propane forge and a quiet anvil are two of the big ones)

[pkrankow]

You can also restrain the anvil well to a wooden stump, use caulk, silicone, rubber, roofing felt, or other pad material under the anvil, and wrap chain around the anvil waist to quiet it down significantly. A bright sounding anvil will still make noise, but much much less. I still wear earplugs with my Trenton, even though it is not a church bell anymore.
Phil

[Matt Watson]

I have been scrolling through these trying to figure out what to do to mine if someone who knows more than me wants to offer their insight it would be appreciated. My anvil is a 1830-1850 Hill anvil 201# that was forged with the hardy and prichet hole. I bought it a couple years ago and paid $1200 for it ( my first anvil) also my only anvil. I have maybe 100 hrs of use on it but I just got my forge going a few weeks ago. It is in good shape for the most part but there is not a sharp edge on it anywhere because of chips not major problem but a little sharper on the corners would  be good. and there is a sag in the main hammer section you would use as well as towards the hardy and pritchet hole. basically I have about a 2''x4'' section that is flat. Im not worried about being level but flat would be nice. Is fly milling the face an option for me without ruining the hardness. I don't want to weld at all on it. I was just thinking of milling down .025-.075'' to flatten it enough for more useability. anyone know some more information that they care to share about the forged Hill anvils?   

[Kozzy]

Instead of potentially ruining the old thing, just make a hardy insert with a flat plate on top when you need a larger flat spot.  For example, find a piece of 6 x 6 x 3/4 that can be hardened, weld a square shank that fits your hardy in the middle of the bottom of that flat, do a simple HT and temper below an easy to break hardness--then drop it in when you need better than your anvil can give you. Could easily be modified to 4 different radius edges too...say sharp, 1/8, 1/4, and 3/8 to add usefulness.

Offset it from the hardy toward the main body of the anvil if your hole happens to be way out in weak territory. 

Of course there are some devils in the details...like the weld bead needing to clear the edges of the hardy hole or reducing "bounce" ...but it isn't rocket science and should be an easy project for anyone with a welder.

Much better than screwing with an anvil's face and edges in ways that may cause more harm than good.

[Frosty]

No to all your questions. With only 100 hrs. you're thinking you can improve a tool that was used for a few lifetimes. This is a common mistake folk make when breaking into a new craft, we all want the best tools and equipment we can get and often try to make good tools the best before we know how to use them properly.

Sharp edges are NOT a good thing, they'll do damage to any inside corners forged over them. You don't want tongs who's shoulders you set over sharp edges to snap do you? Radiusing the edges form radiused inside corners which conduct stress smoothly rather than behaving like scored glass snapping. Make sense?

About the dishing face. You'll almost never forge down the length of the face and then mostly straightening forged products. The dish will be relatively flat across the face in the center of the dish. This is normal wear caused by perhaps generations of blacksmiths working on it. If it were detrimental to the craft it would've been repaired or replaced long before now.

Without pictures of the face we can't really say how usable it is now. However, just 1/4" - 3/4" swale falls almost criminally short of needing to risk such a fine old lady restoring it. Taking that much off is removing literally, 190 years of useful life. That's how long it took to cold forge that much swale into it. The dish is NOT wear, it's how much the wrought iron body has been forged down under the face plate one hammer blow at a time. 

So, please don't try restoring or repairing your anvil. Save some to put with what you can sell a genuine antique and buy a flat sharp edged new anvil. There are folks making excellent anvils in America as we speak.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

[Glenn]

1 hour ago, Matt Watson said:

I have maybe 100 hrs of use on it but I just got my forge going a few weeks ago. It is in good shape for the most part but there is not a sharp edge on it anywhere because of chips not major problem but a little sharper on the corners would  be good. and there is a sag in the main hammer section

Use the anvil for a year (2000 hours) and get to know each other. You may find that you do not need to make any modifications. 

[Matt Watson]

Frosty this is the only one I have on my phone at the moment I can post another one tomorrow.  I know what you mean about wanting the best of things I'm bad about that that's why I wanted this anvil I thought it was going to be the best and it is amazing I think and the only reason I want a flat surface is for straightening things that are longer than the with in the front part that is pretty flat. The corners aren't much of a concern I wish they were in better shape but I have a few spots that I wouldn't want to change due to the fact that they actually help in some things. Kozzy I actually thought about that and took a flat piece of stock and have been laying it on top to straighten things but I cant really hit hit because of the bounce so I had thought about essentially making a lid to sit over the entire face but I didn't know if it would bounce as well. Making a top plate hardy tool sounds like it may make it work. Has anyone had any success with this that you know of and if so what hardness and steel would be best for this purpose? Something between 56 and 60 maybe so maybe a plate of 1075, 1085, or o1 I guess maybe the steel type itself wouldn't matter as much as the hardness level too hard it breaks or too soft and it dishes. Also if a hardy hole plate was used would there need to be something between the plate and the face like a rubber mat or a lead sheet? And Glenn thats originally what I wanted to do but it just frustrates me not being able to straighten pieces having to use a vice or some other way to straighten something longer than 5". Thanks guys for the advice!

[swedefiddle]

Matt,

You can straighten something easier on the swail of the face, with the Anvil you have, than you can on a flat face surface. If you want a flat face to set up something square, use a piece of counter top, marble, fake marble or wood.

That Anvil still has a lot of Teaching in her. She will be teaching you and your Grandson!!

Neil

[Matt Watson]

Swedefiddle by swail your referring to the low dished spot? If so I do use this section for straightening to within probably 1/8 of an inch but anything closer than that I have to resort to other methods. Maybe I just need more experience and practice with my anvil. I just know that I dont have to work as hard on an anvil that has a flat face. The one at my local group forge is flat and I dont have a problem with it. The instructor said he welded it then flattened it with a grinder and he has probably 50 years of experience and told me to do that with mine. I didnt want to argue with him or anything of the sort since he is nice enough to instruct us for free at his home and he definitely knows alot, but I was shocked when he suggested to me after what I had read about it welding ruins anvils rebound and hardness. But I also tend to look at alot of different things before I jump into something. 

[ThomasPowers]

Chunk of RR rail can be used to straighten a lot of stuff on.  Generally available cheap if you hunt. Weld 3 legs on it and got to town!

 I would NOT use O1 for hardy tooling save perhaps for a hardy!  Why not 4340, easily available in large chunks as it's used for a lot of Machining...

US$6 a pound for an anvil you consider needing work?  Why didn't you buy a top brand new one?

[Matt Watson]

ThomasPowers I'm not familiar with 4340 I'll have to look that one up I pretty much know nothing when it comes to metallurgy. As far as my anvil I bought it online and had it shipped to me. I did look at pictures but at the time I knew nothing about anvils except the old ones that were forged were supposed to be the best of the best along with hand crank blowers and post vices. That was my general understanding at the time. I still think my anvil is superior in alot of ways compared to others that I have seen in person now that I have located people in my area with the same interest. But either way I have decided I'm definitely not going to do anything to it except maybe make a plate for the top to straighten longer stock. Or I may just save up and get a flat one that is around a hundred pounds or three RR track if I can find a piece I haven't had any luck with that in my area. 

[ThomasPowers]

There are a lot of folks out there wanting to make their old anvil into the BEST condition possible just when they are getting started; the problem is that they don't really know what is "best" when they have no experience in the field.  We often mention the Dunning-Kruger effect---when you don't know much about something you are more likely to assume you know more than you do. (Not know how much you don't know.)  A lot like teenagers in some ways.   With a bit of experience you can make informed decisions about your tooling.