Anvil Repair (horn replacement)

[BM454]

I bought this old Wilkinson anvil last year in a scrap yard. There was a big part of it missing as you can see.What I have done is welded the edges ( 1 so far) and pad welded the end where the horn was. The reason I pad welded it is, so the new steel will have something solid to weld to. I know if I start with a good solid base it should help hold. The base metal is wrought of course but, it places it was kinda rotten. I took an angle grinder and dug until I hit good metal. Also back ground the edge of the welds to make sure the weld was taking properly. The best I can tell it worked rather well. I used 9018 B3H4R welding rods on it due to the fact they were free and I have LOTS of them. :) I have a solid shaft of of a rather large hydraulic cylinder I'm going to use for the cutting table and horn. I found the measurements for an anvil the same size and VERY close to the same weight on line so that's going to be my baseline as to what to do. As of now there's about two inches of the face gone, all the cutting table and horn as well. I plan on building it back up with weld to the shape I want and then using stoody to do a final weld on the face plate.



This is the anvil when I got it home. Nothing had been done to it.



This is somewhat cleaned up and ready to weld.



Welded and ready to knock the high spots down and fill in the low spots. I ran out of time last night.



And this is what I am going to replace the horn with. It was free as well.




Let me know if I an going about it wrong and I'd be more than happy to listen. I'm always open to suggestions. I'll keep you posted as I get time to work on it. I'm going to try to get the horn cut and added tonight. At least tack welded and ready to weld. Also I'm going to bevel the end of the ram before I weld it. Not just going to put it up there and run weld around it. It should be welded solid once I get done with it.

Scott

[clinton]

Welding dissimilar metals may have mixed results. I would use chromoly rod if you have some. I think hydraulic cylinders are 4140. 7018 would be my next choice of electrode it seem to do well on mixed materials

[ThomasPowers]

Stoody may be too hard for the face; have your read up on Rob Gunter's anvil repair methods?

With all your welding so far I know I don't need to remind you about pre/post heating of any welding on the high carbon face! (But for others reading this....)

[dablacksmith]

i would not use the new horn as a drawing die (like you can with a unbroken anvil) other than that i think it should work fine... good luck!

[HWHII]

I think you should be fine with the 9018 and what you are trying to do. Are you planning on drilling a hole in the anvil to accept the stepped down portion on your shaft? If not, It might be a good idea and give you some added support in case the welds crack.

[BM454]

Welding dissimilar metals may have mixed results. I would use chromoly rod if you have some. I think hydraulic cylinders are 4140. 7018 would be my next choice of electrode it seem to do well on mixed materials

The 9018 B3H4R is a high chrome rod. We use them to weld boiler tubes and if you get them to hot it will burn the chrome out of the weld (sugar)
Tig welding it of course. It does not seem to do it as much when sticking.

[Rich Hale]

Free rod certainly rings my bell but I have not used the rod you have. For every anvil I have repaired i have used 7018, I weld less than an inch at a time and then pein it really well, i believe that stress relief is worth all of the effort it takes. Remember that this rod comes in two types, one for ac use and one for dc welding. They do not interchange well at all. i would also use mild steel for the horn and step. And I would tack the piece in place well the make sure is was beveled deep into the center of the piece so i could wseld one side, the make sure I would grind all the way in from the other side into the first weld then weld that area. Last two sides same thing. Just me but for all the effort you will end up with in this I feel it is time well spent. And i think we both have a similiat way of thinking,,it it is already broke how can we hurt it anymore? Keep us posted with pics as you work through this...nice start.

[VaughnT]

Looks great! Like Rich said, you can't break it any further and if your welds don't hold up you'll just end up right back where you started. Nothing lost but time...

Rich, when you say you're peining the beads, what are you doing? Do you mean? What does it accomplish?

[HWooldridge]

I would tack it in place with some stand-offs between the body and horn so you can weld all the way to the root. In other words, don't simply run a fillet around the edge but make it as homogenous as possible.

[Rich Hale]

Take a ball pein and tap it all over the bead,, it does a couple of things, it is supposed to relieve stress and ,(I say it that way as I do nto have link to provide that proves that) and 7018 work hardens. i have checked with a file and it feels like it does just that when peined! I have done alot of anvils this way and the two I use now were both done about a decade ago and they work great, Neither of them required the lenghty repairs in this thread.

[clinton]

OK thanks for the info on the electrode- I am not familiar with it (obviously)
Keep us posted I would like to see how it turns out

[Robert Yates]

When you Pein or tap a welded surface the atoms in the steel move to releave stress and help to prevent cracking (this will work most of the time ) a way to get a visual picture of it is get a small bowl add a bit of water then sprinkel pepper on the water ( the water is the hot welded steel) now add one drop od dish soap watch what happens this is the Hammer tapping the heated steel and the atoms is the pepper . you will be amazed to see what happens . and it is what happens with Peining a weld on steel .

Sam

[jeremy k]

Piening the weld also takes up for the weld shrinkage during cooling.
By piening - your expanding the weld while its shrinking to equalize the shrinking so as to help eliminate stresses to create a crack next to the weld from the weld shrinking more than the parent metal.

[ThomasPowers]

Unless you are at absolute zero the atoms in your metal are *always* moving.

[BM454]

With a 8018 or higher rod you should always preheat the area to be welded. Depending on the materials to be welded and the rods to be used is how hot to preheat. Some materials like AR 200 Nd AR 400 should be preheated to 550 F or more and post heated as well. If I weld either of those metals I use 11018M Rods. 110,000 psi. As far as the ram out of the cylinder goes, I have welded several over the years and always held up well. Just a matter of doing it the right way. I'm going to try to get started back this week on the rebuild. I have classes for the next 3 weeks and I'm also whirring my basement. I have no outlets in it and very few lights.

Scott

[Robert Yates]

I agree Scott , well said .

Sam