Steel Blocks as Anvils, Take 2

[bajajoaquin]

Well, my last topic with this title seems to be caught in limbo somewhere (if it appears again, please excuse my duplication).

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, there's a guy locally who is selling steel blocks of various sizes which were formerly used as counterweights on machinery. He had a bunch of sizes, including 13x7x3.25 - 80 lbs and 14x24x4 - 375 lbs.

I decided to buy a few of his 80-pounders, with the hope of attaching some triangles of one of them as horns on another. (The third one I bought because, well, I can't resist that stuff).

I've got a HF band saw, and I'm thinking that I can get a pretty good chunk out of one of the blocks, and then spend some time with a grinder. Since I only have a 180-amp MIG welder, I've been thinking of various ways of attaching. My current idea is to drill holes in the horn and body, tap in steel rods, and then fit them together. Maybe have the rods on the sides of the anvil body, so I can cross-drill and plug weld them in place, for extra weld surface.

There's supposedly one company that sells 0.035" hard-face wire, which is the largest my machine can handle. I don't know the alloy of the blocks, but I assume it's just mild steel. I will probably want to put on a harder face.

Here's a pic of the blocks.

Any comments would be welcome.

If there's any interest in the other blocks, I can re-post the ad, and I'd be happy to do some picking up for a local member (San Diego area).

[Jreed]

Cool. Have you thought of standing 2 of them up on their side and welding them together? That would give you 160lbs then you could stand the block on end and have all that mass under you. I wish I was still stationed at Camp Pendleton I would hit you up for a couple.
Hopefully I will be stationed back out there in a year if so I will look this back up and see if he still has some left.

[pkrankow]

Don't get too worked up about making a "london pattern" anvil. You can get more performance by just dressing the block.

Here's some ideas.



Phil

[bajajoaquin]

Yeah, that's exactly the thread that got me thinking about this project. And kept whispering in my ear to get the 375-lb lump....

I'm not looking at it to be a London pattern, though. I guess, I'm more thinking of German patterns: with a round horn on one end, and a triangular one on the other. If you look at the second picture of Brian Brazeal's setup, you can see that there's a small heel and horn. I'm thinking more along those lines than a commercial pattern.

However, looking back at that thread, maybe I'll go and grab one of those big chunks of steel. I mean, for $80, how wrong can I go? When I was out there, I just looked at it, and said, "oh man, how am I going to move that thing?" It was a moment of weakness!

Still, if I can mount a horn and heel, and then stack the plates, I could very well end up with something in the 200-lb range, and have a very serviceable piece of equipment.

[bajajoaquin]

Sam, that's almost exactly what I have in mind. Since I'm not concerned with breaking it down for travel, I would do
a more permanent fixture.

I'm thinking about two pins, one on either side of the horn, for two reasons. One is that if they're close to the edges, say 3/8", I could drill in a hole in the side of the body to do a plug weld for additional joinery.

The other reason is that my drill press only turns down at 170 rpm or so, and I'd be worried that I wouldn't get nicely matched, even holes if I was working at max capacity. Two smaller holes would be easier to do than a really big one.

[bajajoaquin]

Oh, yeah. I went and priced hard-facing wire, and it is like $110/spool. I may decide to see how well it works without it.

[ThomasPowers]

What about justy drilling a large hole cross ways and seeing if the local Vo tech would turn you a cone with a tenon on the base that would fit the hole and then drill and tap for a keeper on the other side (doing a slot and tapered wedge would be "old school"! And make it easier to change out other possible shapes...)

[pkrankow]

Oh, yeah. I went and priced hard-facing wire, and it is like $110/spool. I may decide to see how well it works without it.

How big is said spool? Pounds are nice

MIG has a much better deposition than stick, more weight of material becomes weight in the part.

I like Thomas' idea to have changeable parts, but question the real practical value in it. Changeable parts have come up in other threads, and it boils down to just a few always being used so little need to have lots of changes.

Phil

[bajajoaquin]

It's a 10-pound spool. I think it's a pretty expensive way to add pounds, since I paid $50 for 240 pounds of blocks! But I put a post on the Hobart weld forum about the coverage I could expect from a 10-lb spool. It's entirely possible that I'll have a significant amount left over for future projects. I can live with that.

Any opinions on how 0.045 flux-core wire will perform on a 180-amp machine? I'm trying to operate below the max capacity of the welder in hopes of getting better performance.

I like the idea of going to a vo-tech school to turn a cone. I might just do that. If they put on a 2.25" tenon (or so), perhaps they could mill the matching mortise in my anvil body. Then, rather than putting in keepers, I could continue with my welding plan. I don't have any plans to swap out the horn or heel, so I don't see a lot of advantage to adding the complexity.

[bajajoaquin]

Cool. Have you thought of standing 2 of them up on their side and welding them together? That would give you 160lbs then you could stand the block on end and have all that mass under you. I wish I was still stationed at Camp Pendleton I would hit you up for a couple.
Hopefully I will be stationed back out there in a year if so I will look this back up and see if he still has some left.

Sorry, but the company is a contractor that's going out of business. Everything will be auctioned next month if it doesn't sell. It's up in Vista, and I'm down in Point Loma. So, at this point, I'm not likely to drive near by for another reason.

[Jreed]

Sorry, but the company is a contractor that's going out of business. Everything will be auctioned next month if it doesn't sell. It's up in Vista, and I'm down in Point Loma. So, at this point, I'm not likely to drive near by for another reason.

Oh well you win some you lose some.

[bajajoaquin]

So, in my world, things take time (lots of it) to progress. But I'm making a little bit of progress.

A friend of a friend owns a welding supply, and he's tracked down a source with a big spool of the 0.035 hard-facing wire, and he is willing to re-spool a smaller amount. I'm hoping he'll do a 5-lb roll, since I really don't need 10. That will save me $65.

I've got a week off coming up, and I'll spend some time with my assembly then. My plan is to cut off the handles, and weld them in a tall, thin block. Hard-face and fab up a stand. I haven't yet decided how I'm going to deal with the horn. Maybe wandering around Industrial Metal Supply in the next couple of days will provide inspiration!