Other uses for anvils

[Timothy Miller]

I have a few anvils I have accumulated over the years. A customer contracted me to forge some bolts to hang a bell. They were doubtful about forge welding and the engineer on the project suggested arc welding. The client liked the idea of the forge weld better after they saw my sample. I was told to suspend a load %150 of the ultimate load. it worked out to be about 1000 lbs of anvils. So I put some of my anvils to work. The big ones stayed in the shop. The welds held nothing broke bended or deflected.

[Sask Mark]

You can't argue with those results! Did the engineer accept your methodology?

If I'm hauling 16' long boards in my 6.5" truck box, I'll throw one of my anvils on the front of the boards and strap it to the front of the box to keep the stack of boards from tipping.

[ThomasPowers]

Will the bell be swung? If so how did they calculate the ultimate load? Just weight or weight and motion?

(I'm on the "keep the church bell working" committee at our church and sprung for the expensive high grade bolt instead of the cheap box store one for our 1880's bell now in it's second building, same church.)

[bnewberry]

I have a few anvils I have accumulated over the years. A customer contracted me to forge some bolts to hang a bell. They were doubtful about forge welding and the engineer on the project suggested arc welding. The client liked the idea of the forge weld better after they saw my sample. I was told to suspend a load %150 of the ultimate load. it worked out to be about 1000 lbs of anvils. So I put some of my anvils to work. The big ones stayed in the shop. The welds held nothing broke bended or deflected.

Let me be the first to offer to trade you bags of sand for one of those fine anvils!

I'm glad your work passed the test, that would have been exciting if it didn't.

[Sask Mark]

Will the bell be swung? If so how did they calculate the ultimate load? Just weight or weight and motion?

(I'm on the "keep the church bell working" committee at our church and sprung for the expensive high grade bolt instead of the cheap box store one for our 1880's bell now in it's second building, same church.)

Yes, I have known structural engineers who have fits trying to figure out foundations for flagpoles since the loads on them are continually changing.

[Timothy Miller]

It is a Japanese bell so it is struck not swung. I did gently swing the load just to satisfy my self. If you want anvils you just have to pay for them like I did but I am willing to pay what they are worth so I get them.

[Chuck_Steak]

With Flag Poles and similar, its not the one large load that you have to worry about, its the accumulation of 1000's of small loads less than the UTS, such as from wind, that will get you.

A couple years ago I had to magnetic particle inspect 50+ light poles in a shopping center parking lot. Two poles had fallen over over approximately 2 years. We did a failure analysis and it was high cycle fatigue that propagated from a weld toe. The problem was that the lamps they hung off the poles was very heavy and large. The poles had more than sufficient strength to hold the lamps up, but the accumulation of wind over 3 or 4 years lead to the fatigue cracking. Every pole in the parking lot exhibited fatigue cracks, some propagating through more than 50% of the pole circumference.

Probably not a factor in this situation, but something to consider when large projects are going to be suspended for long periods of time.

[Timothy Miller]

A properly executed forge weld that has been normalized will have no such problems.

[Frosty]

The only thing I see missing is an aluminum engine block under the load. Multi-tasking is a good thing you know Timothy.

Frosty The Lucky.