Abused Anvils As Source of Wrought Iron

[bajajoaquin]

The abused Hay Budden thread reminded me of something that occurred to me recently. At the right price (perhaps around $0.25 a pound), is an abused anvil worth purchasing as a source of wrought iron? If you could get 100 or 150 pounds of wrought iron for $25 or $50 or so, would it be worth while? You could conceivably cut it up with a band saw, and have a pretty considerable amount of stock.

[MattBower]

Sure, if you have an efficient way to cut it or otherwise work it to manageable sizes. But if I could get my hands on that beat-to-death Hay-Budden for $25, I'd experiment with resurfacing techniques.

[Sask Mark]

I have seen anvils that have been cut into slices and sold as wrought iron on ebay before. A lot of times the wrought iron is priced in the $1/pound range on ebay.

[bajajoaquin]

my friend jim kieffer could fix that anvil

Aside from the fact that it sounds suspiciously like something Jeff Spicoli said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I'm curious to hear about this. How would he do it? Would he build up with rod and then hard-facing, or re-weld a plate on top?

[Dragons lair]

The abused Hay Budden thread reminded me of something that occurred to me recently. At the right price (perhaps around $0.25 a pound), is an abused anvil worth purchasing as a source of wrought iron? If you could get 100 or 150 pounds of wrought iron for $25 or $50 or so, would it be worth while? You could conceivably cut it up with a band saw, and have a pretty considerable amount of stock.

How do ya get 100 or 150lbs of wrought from a trashed 97 lb anvil?
Ken.

[bajajoaquin]

By speaking in general terms, not about a specific anvil that has a starting bid if over a hundred bucks, for starters.

[MattBower]

Aside from the fact that it sounds suspiciously like something Jeff Spicoli said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I'm curious to hear about this. How would he do it? Would he build up with rod and then hard-facing, or re-weld a plate on top?

If you go back in the archives a month or two, Stewart posted pics of an anvil that Mr. Kieffer repaired by forge welding a new face onto the damaged portion.

LATER: Yeah, here it is:

[bajajoaquin]

Interesting. I've never seen that thread. That's fantastic.

Since so few people seem to be able to repair anvils these days, perhaps the best use of an abused anvil is to attempt to fix it, and learn. If it didn't work, you could still cut it up for scrap.

[ThomasPowers]

Some anvil makers didn't use very good WI in their anvil bodies. (Postman warned me about William Foster anvils when I picked up one for $5...)

Wrought iron in anvil shape is not a very useful shape/size for making most things and the time and effort involved in converting it into other shapes can ruin the profit margin!

However it would be neat to slab one for blademakers who want WI fittings and so could claim that they were made from an old anvil---and they prefer the lower grades of WI as they have more "character".