russian cast steel aso

[connor bachmann]

Hey guys, I have a russian cast steel ASO that I've been using for the past 6 months. I have been widely unimpressed with this piece of junk, especially the fact that the face is WAY to soft. After attempting to harden it, I have found that it is either mild or a very low carbon steel...

Anyways, I was wondering if it would be worth it to add a tool steel face plate to the anvil. If so, what method should I use? Should I forge weld it onto there? arc/mig weld? epoxy? light-cure? braze? or use some other method?


Advice will be greatly appreciated. :)

[philip in china]

We get more or less this question every few weeks. Yes it can be done but it is neither cheap nor easy. The honest answer, which you don't want to hear, is use that one as an upsetting block and get yourself either a proper anvil or failing that a large piece of steel which will work as an anvil.

[bajajoaquin]

Although, if it's cast steel rather than cast iron, shouldn't he be able to either harden or hard face it?

If he has more time than money, he could conceivably do a spark test to see if it's higher carbon than plain old mild steel. Couldn't he then heat and quench? Or, if he's got a friend who welds there might be an opportunity to add a layer of hard facing.

Neither option is easy nor cheap. But if he hasn't found another anvil it might make his current substandard solution better.

If course, if it's cast iron, there's no point in doing anything except looking for an anvil.

--edited to fix typos from typing with my thumbs the first time.--

Edited November 24, 2010 by bajajoaquin

[MLMartin]

How did you try to harden the anvil? is it the 110 pound one from harbor freight, some friends of mine have hardened them with good results, but you'll need a huge heat source and in the range of 500 gallons of water to quench it, maybe more. just dropping it in a 55 gallon barrel is not near enough water.

[MattBower]

I have the same question about how you tried to harden it. If this is marginally hardenable steel on the low end of the medium carbon range, quenching a mass that large fast enough to really get hard isn't a simple thing. If you just dump it in a big pool or barrel of water, it's going to form a huge vapor jacket that'll really screw up the quench. Or so I've been told. I think you'd be better off with a powerful, high pressure stream of water -- or better yet several of them. Got any friends at the fire department?

That failing, the Gunter anvil repair method may give you a better surface, at the cost of a lot of time and effort, and some money. See the archives.

[arftist]

Try this,

[connor bachmann]

it is indeed steel, I know that for a fact. I did put it into my coal forge with a HUGE anthracite fire, got it heated up to orange, and dropped it into a barrel of water..... nothing happened

I want to get a real anvil, but can't afford one at the moment, however, I do have some tool steel plates lying around, and I'm thinking of putting them on as a temporary fix...

[MLMartin]

If you weld on a new steel plate it will be just as soft as the current steel anvil that's not tempered correctly. I think you will only make the anvil worse.

Next time heat up the anvil then quench it under about 500 or more gallons of fast falling water. Have a huge tank up in the air and maybe a 4 or 5 inch pipe coming off the bottom, have all the water run out of that as fast as possible, the falling water will help to keep away the steam air pocket that kept your anvil soft last time you tried to harden it. Like some one said before a friend at the fire department taped into a hydrant may be a big help.

If you just weld on a new steel plate it will still be soft because it will take a huge amount of heat to weld that new steel plate on, then you will have to same trouble of trying to quench/harden it in water.

[MattBower]

First, that is a real anvil. It's not ideal, maybe, but it's very likely a heck of a lot better than what many Medieval and earlier smiths had to work on.

Second, heating is only a small part of the battle in heat treating. Quenching at the appropriate rate is the really crucial part, and that's where I think you ran into trouble. You may actually have made your anvil softer. Welding on a tool steel face is likely to present problems, too. If you heat treat after welding, you face the same problem you had with the anvil itself: how to harden it. If you heat treat before welding, then you have to avoid overtempering during welding.

If I were you I'd either try to reharden the anvil with better quench technique, or go for the Gunter method. One other option that might work is to use mechanical fasteners to attach a hardened face. I don't know that this'd work, but it's something I've been wondering about lately. BIGGUNDOCTOR had the same basic idea a few years ago.

[ThomasPowers]

If you look at the cost of hardfacing rods, electricity and abrasives you may find out that it's *CHEAPER* to buy another anvil.

Do not tape a fireman to a hydrant! They get surly....However asking if they would use a high pressure hose on a red hot anvil *might* succeed as many firemen have an interest in pyro processes.

[MattBower]

Do not tape a fireman to a hydrant! They get surly....However asking if they would use a high pressure hose on a red hot anvil *might* succeed as many firemen have an interest in pyro processes.

I agree. I figure you'd want to do it at the local fire training academy, where they probably use a lot of water anyway. I'd build a charcoal ground forge to heat it in.

[MattBower]

Do not tape a fireman to a hydrant! They get surly....However asking if they would use a high pressure hose on a red hot anvil *might* succeed as many firemen have an interest in pyro processes.

I agree. I figure you'd want to do it at the local fire training academy, where they probably use a lot of water anyway. I'd build a charcoal ground forge to heat the anvil in.

[maddog]

Hard facing would be pretty expensive between rods and abrasive materials. Arc welding on a tool steel plate is a lot of work. Properly done it would require a full weld across the face, not just at the edges. I don't know your skill level at welding, but these are not projects for a novice welder. Forge welding the plate on is beyond the ability of most. Quenching is a serious amount of work with uncertain results.

Why bother with any of this? A soft steel anvil is just fine. Brian Brazeal does a lot of forging on a mild steel block. It will mushroom faster than a tool steel surface but you can just build it up with 7018 welding rod when that happens, or put down some hard face on just those areas that deformed. It would probably be a long time before you had to do much to refurbish it. The kind of wear a hobby smith puts on an anvil is nothing compared to what happens in a pro shop where the anvil is being used all day every day and often with a striker.

This anvil sounds like a great one to start with. It's not an ASO, its perfectly serviceable. It was comparatively cheap. If you ding it with the hammer, it wont chip or hurt the hammer and the damage is easy to repair. The face will probably work harden with use. In a few years you will have the experience to know what you really want in an anvil and by that time, if you keep your eyes open, you may have found one.