show me your Rail track anvil to help me build mine

[Speedmouse]

So im building an anvil out of a 2ft piece of track, its pretty slow work but its getting done. what i am curious about is what other people have done and different designs people have used and particularly how people have done it. particularly things such as hardy holes or just round holes.

i googled track anvils and started drooling a bit, now my head is spinning with ideas i never had previously.

[GRiley904]

I recently set mine up here is a link to the thread

[Pug}{maN]

^^^^^^^^ THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO MAKE ONE !^^^^^^^^^^^

i made mine when i first started laying flat , and mad it look like a anvil , it worked but not good , to much bounce , the hammer never hit as hard as it should have , i did one thing on it sold it and got a made anvil , im not saying to not make it and get a made anvil, im saying do it like the pic above and you will get more work done on it....

heres pics of my first junk anvil...




what i made off it...



took me 2 hours to make that , on my anvil now it would take 45 min or less....

[Daniel.85]

This chunk weighs about 100lbs, it was bigger than a normal rr track so the face is a decent size when its upright like that. I don't use it anymore though, probably going to stick in on craigs eventually.

[ThomasPowers]

"The complete Modern blacksmith" by Weygers has instructions for making a rail anvil including hardy and heat treating. If you are in the USA you should be able to ILL this book at your local public library---but you may want to suggest to your relatives that it would make a good Christmas/Hanukkah/Dwali/??? present.

[mat]

this is one i made

http://www.iforgeiro...il-track-anvil/

[Speedmouse]

wow thanx guys, i particularly like the one Mat made so i might look into doing that myself.

[yves]

Here is the one that I found. I will install it on a wooden block for my grand son to use when he comes visiting. It will add to his experience of turning the blower...

[Jack Evers]

That's nice work.

[raven154]

Here is mine. No hardy hole yet. I've drilled the hole for the start of one though.

[pkrankow]

I flip my 6 inch piece of rail around as a swage block. Sometimes it is just the thing, especially since it has a thermite weld bulge in it!

Stew, your wife is awesome having an anvil as a centerpiece in the dining room!

Phil

[ThomasPowers]

Stewart when I got started around 1981 I had the Modern Blacksmith in one hand and the tongs or hammer in the other---still have my copy with big black thumb prints on the pages.

I really liked his scrounge, make do and do it on the cheap philosophy---especially as I was getting most of my iron from farm scrap piles and making my own charcoal to forge with.

(Note that his results were exceptional even with the "found" starting materials!)

[yves]

Raven 154,

I'll send you my address. Send me yours, we'll exchange...

[Speedmouse]

haha Thomas you and i share a lot of things then, all my metal comes mostly from the 80 odd cars we have at home and i make my own char coal and i like doing things on the cheap not to save money but for the experience, would you believe we even share a first name.

I was going to make on that looks like Yves and Raven 154's but i have read that bounce back makes that style rather much less effective than putting the rail up on its end, so with that in mind i was going to make a horn and anvil surface and weld that onto the top end of a piece of rail... the only problem i have with that is i only have two pieces of rail. one is a about 2ft long and weights in at 30lbs the other is about 10ft long and i dont have an oxy to cut the dam thing with lol suggestions? if i cant figure out a way to cut it i will turn my 30lb piece into a stand alone anvil and make it look all pretty. im a fan of pretty things you see.

[ThomasPowers]

I cut railroad rail a couple of times a year with my honking big angle grinder and have cut trolly rail with my 30" hack saw, (metal cutting bandsaw blade mounted in a bow saw frame, holes slightly closer that with a wood blade so the tension is greater, I like Sandvik frames myself)

When cutting it by hacksaw remember to cut it from the bottom toward the work hardened top and let the last work hardened bit break off rather than saw off.

Unfortunately the name I go by is my middle name not my first; even my Mother doesn't use my first name so when I get calls from people using my first name's diminutive I *know* they don't know me well enough to be using the diminutive! By odd coincidence my wife does not use her first name either and they both start with the same letter...

As to "pretty" most of us like and admire "pretty" tools; however some of us figure that pretty results are more important than pretty tools and put the extra effort into *using* the tools as practice in making stuff is a big component of making pretty things. (and then you get the people who already make jaw dropping stuff and then go on to pretty up their equipment and shops; but as I told one friend complaining about *my* shop---"You spend more time each week *cleaning* your shop than I get to *use* mine!)

[Jeff B]

Here is the one I made a couple years back