Using a chisel as an anvil?!

[caotropheus]

Well not an ordinary chisel but the chisel from an excavator's hydraulic breaker. Got it at the scrap yard 50$. The biggest piece weighs 120 kg and the smallest piece weighs 50 kg. Ruler is 1 meter long and chisel's diameter is 145 mm. I would like to take the longest piece hold it upright in a support and use it as an anvil. The problem is how am I going to cut a flat face in it?

 

 

Please experts, help me.

 

 

[Stephen Olivo]

cut off wheel would probably be best or take it to a shop and they should be able to cut a flat face on it.   Built up stand of 2 by 4s and or 4by 4s would probably be the easies way to hold it upright.

[Dale M.]

Think I would have it cut at shop equipped to handle large materials... It might take several chop saw blades  if one were to try generic shop variety (14 inch) chop saw.... (145mm is a little better than 5.7 inches for those of us not on metric system)... Its probably going to be hardened material and abrasive cut off may be only way to do it...

 

Dale

[knots]

Well a 4 1/2" grinder with a cut off blade will not cut deep enough for a through cut.  It would probably take an 8" cut off to do the job, and then by cutting from all around the piece.   What tools are available to you .

 

When cut it occurs to me that if you could create a socket sleeve to a fix to a stump.   The "sharp" end could be ground to a rounded profile to serve the same function as the anvil horn.  The socket would allow you to easily flip end to end for flat and rounded forging surfaces .   The socket could be a close fitting piece of pipe with a mounting plate welded to the bottom.

 

Good luck.

[PeteH]

Judging by the fracture, there's some radial crystallization in there, which argues in favor of it being hardened.  In which case, an abrasive disk is the way to go.

 

Maybe, though, the hardness doesn't extend all the way to the core.  Give it a hit with a weld-grinder and see how much of a dent you can make in the centre of the broken face.

 

Looks like a nice find.  I'd bet you'll keep using it long after you get a "regular" anvil.

[stromam]

Find a fabrication shop that has a laser or water jet, they can probably cut it in about 2 minutes once the get it in the machine.  I bet they wouldn't charge more than $20, which you would probably spend in grinder cut off wheels.

[stromam]

They may even have a big bandsaw that could handle it, if that's the case they may do it for free if you sweet talk them.  Just warn them it might be hardened, they may not care and their saw may be able to handle it.  You could always take a hacksaw to it to test if it can be cut with metal.

[caotropheus]

Gentleman,

 

Thank you very much for your answers. I think I will try to find a fabrication shop with some sort of cold cut resources, I want to keep the original hardness of the steel.

 

 

Two updates: The good news is that rebound with a steel bearing is above 90%; the bad news is that I tried to cut the surface of the steel with an hack saw and It would skid the surface, the saw just polished the surface...

[matei campan]

that's not a bad news that you have a hardened chunk of steel :)

 

with some time on hand you could make it by hand, as the diameter is not very large (145mm). mark the piece around to see the limit to which you have to work. then make cuts perpendicular to the future face of the anvil (parallel to the length of the cylinder), spaced enough close to be  cut  from the side one by one without the cut-off disk being stuck in the cut. after you advance deep enough, you won't be able to cut perpendicular to the slices, but at an angle, but there's no problem to dress the irregularities at the end with a grinding wheel. this may take an afternoon, depends of your skills and the size of the grinder you have.

anyway, it will take less than searching for someone to cut it, moving it to them, etc. and will cost just some cut-off disks.

[John McPherson]

Cutting it with an oxy-acetylene torch and the right size tip would be easy, but you would lose the temper at the cut and have to grind it back anyway.

 

Use abrasive cutting wheels and take it slow, let it cool between small attempts.

[iron woodrow]

these are through hardened, i used to reforge and temper them, and we had some hire companies who used to argue that we could weld broken ones with a mig. we only had to do one, it came back next day, and there were no more arguments :P

we used to cut the broken ones with a well cooled band saw, slow going, but worked well, and didnt ruin the temper.

[caotropheus]

Guys, thank you very much for your replies.  Hope that soon I will have pictures of my brand new "best think I could get to use as an anvil" held upright in a four legged support I will build. Luckily, chisel length is exactly my working height for an anvil.

[VaughnT]

That's a beautiful anvil!  At just over 5" across, you have plenty of working surface and only need to grind the end flat and smooth.  

 

Personally, I would recommend that you simply bury one end in a bucket of cement and call it done.  The extra mass of the cement will only make the anvil work better, and the roundness of it will make it easy to roll out of the way when needed.