Making a second anvil for myself. RR Track

[Alicia Holmes]

Lots of grinding!

 

Initially we used a plasma cutter to cut out the shape for the anvil.  That only took a few minutes by a friend at his shop when we were hanging out one night, and then once i got back to the shop we work at i started the three hour process of grinding grinding grinding.

 

 

After awhile, it starts to take shape. This was all in one night, so far.

 

 

This is towards the end of the night. I stopped this grinding session around here. I made the silly decision to grind inside for that long, so it set the smoke detectors off a number of times -____- that was not fun. We finally just killed the breaker so that i could just keep working!

 

 

 

 

Today i worked on it more, those other photos are from a couple weeks ago or so. Really happy to get as far as i did tonight. Still a ways off, yet, though.

 

 

 

So steamy!!! I was working outside in the bay this time, so lots of airflow and cool winter air. I stopped to let everything cool off and misted down the horn with water. Hence the steam. ;) The tip has not been filled in with the weld yet, in this shot.

 

 

Tip is welded! I wire wheeled to get the grime off, and i had Jeff fill in the tip, because he is a much better welder than I. ( for right now ;) haha!) I ground off the excess and evened it up. I stopped here, tonight, but now i get to refine everything, round up everything else and then start working on the body/grinding down all the sharp and rough edges!

 

I am going to drill the hardy hole, saw out the excess and then file everything smooth. Im also planning on drilling holes in the feet section so that i can bolt it down if i wanted to.

 

So far, all in all, its taken me 5.5 hours to do all this grinding! I still want to mill down the face a bit too, because i am a perfectionist and want it to look perfect, although it is pretty flat as is.

[FordPrefect]

Very nice, great Job!

[John McPherson]

Good work so far! If you mill down the crowning of the rail, you will likely remove the work hardened surface, and it will mark more easily. Used rail has one side rounded, and one side flat, which makes it more useful, not less. Like BB says, more dies to choose from.

 

Now, are you ready to hear the easy way to profile a horn? (Or the base, if you do not have access to a plasma cutter.) Notch it the way a woodworker would saw out a profile. The 4.5 inch grinder is the handiest power tool in a modern metal shop.

 

Get a 10 pack of ultra-thin cut-off disks for your grinder. Mark a series of lines where you want to remove the metal, then cut in with the edge of the disks. (They will burn up fast: make the deepest cuts first, then shallower cuts as the wheel wears.) Then take the disk and cut 90 degrees to the first cuts, taking out the notches. Use the hard abrasive stone wheels to smooth out the cuts, and do a final polish with a flap wheel.

[ThomasPowers]

OTOH having a flat face is *nice*. I've worked on a crowned rail anvil before and the work kept wanting to slide off as it was hammered.

*AND* you can heat treat rail to make the face hard and tough. Weygers gives instructions in "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" in the chapter on how to make an anvil from rail.

Personally if they were two of you I'd have forged the horn to shape a bit before grinding as I find forging fun and grinding a grind!

[Alicia Holmes]

Ah! I forgot to mention that i also spent a couple hours grinding off the mushroomed out part of the rail too! How could i have forgotten... its all blending, i suppose. I crisped up the corners before i did any grinding of the horn. I will round out a section too for making bends. ( again, still lots of work to go for this)

 

Thomas, I did not forge the horn because our forge is not finished being built yet, thats alright though. Getting there. The building for the forge is being built/started.

 

John, luckily i do have access to a plasma cutter, so the harder parts were made easier. I was also going to have the corners of the horn cut off, but didnt get a chance to get back down before i decided to just start grinding. Overall, ive only, so far, used two flap wheels for this, so its not too bad all in all as far as work goes. I am not bothered by how much time it takes. Also, what i like about grinding is its giving me more control over how i want it to look, exactly, this way.

 

Thanks everybody, ill keep up progress on how everything is going. I have some other pictures of cutting the plate for our forge ( coal) and will take photos when we build the draft too.

[ThomasPowers]

Folks; take a shovel out in the yard and dig a hole, place a piece of blackiron pipe along the side of it to the bottom with a shop vac to provide air---a temporary forge is *DONE*. Fill with chunk charcoal and/or coal and start forging. When done replace dirt. Even with a handful of forges I've used this method for doing odd shaped jobs like box folding 3/8" plate several feet across.

Take you MUCH less time than all that extra grinding! (*AND* you are ready to heat treat the anvil after the residual grinding is done!)

A skilled smith should be able to forge to shape within about 10% left for stock removal---at least that's what the neo-tribals aimed for when forging knives in adobe forges using chunks of scrap steel as anvils and charcoal for fuel.
(and forging is *still* more fun than grinding!)

What all the bells and whistles do is to make the job easier and faster---sometimes.