Hardy size question

[brimic]

Hi, been lurking awhile, finally need some advice...

 

I bought a fairly old anvil awhile back, not sure who made it as the only markings I can find on it are '1 0 12' which I take to mean its a 124lb anvil- its definately the wrought iron type with a steel face forged into place.

 

I recently bought a guillotine fuller tool off ebay with a 3/4" post. the post is solid steel and measures 3/4" and has nicely radiused corners. It will only fit 1" into my hardy hole from the top, it will also go 1" or so in when I try to put it in from the bottom, there is some sort of interference 1/2 down the hardy hole.

Is there a way to remedy this? I tried filing inside the hole but that looks like a long, tedious road.

[Jim Coke]

Greetings Brimic,

 

Welcome to IFI,   You need to fill in your info on location and such...   Yep you have an early  English anvil..  It is a pain but take the time to file the hardie hole to a stock fit 3/4..  In the future you will be making new tools and you will want to use standard stock for the post. 

 

Good luck and I wish you well

 

Jim

[Black Frog]

High quality files can make a big difference too...

[brimic]

Alright, I'll give filing another shot, I didn't want to put too much time into it as I plan to make as many of my tools as possible, and figured on hammering the hardy posts to fit. I wasn't sure if filing was the right way to go or if maybe my hardy was some really odd size to begin with.

 I've been using a sharpened old brick chisel for making hot cuts, but now have a few worn out jackhammer bits to make a hardie cutoff with.

I'm more or less getting started up, and bought the fullering tool because I tried fullering with a piece of round stock laid across the anvil to be much harder in practice than theory.

[Alan Evans]

All my tools to fit the anvil hardy holes (both self-made and bought second hand) have tapered pins. The advantage being that they will release with a tap however hard you were pounding on them. They then only need to fit well in one place.

Parallel shanks don't offer much of an advantage in use which is when it really counts. The extra time difference in forging a taper instead of a parallel shank when making a tool does not really matter given the potential lifetime of the tool.

One parallel shank tool stuck in the hole while your workpiece is going cold should convince you of the "tap-and-out " advantage!

Alan

[njanvilman]

Just be careful not to drive in any tools cold too tightly.  They could get stuck, or worse, start a crack in the anvil that will lead to failure.  Most broken anvils I have seen, both cast and forged, are broken at the hardy hole.

 

Perhaps you could heat the shank of the tool to a yellow heat, drive it in to fit, and immeadiately drive it back out.  After cooling, it should fit fine.

[brimic]

. Metal expands when hot like a sidewalk pavement in the summer, and contracts when cool; in other words, steel has a coefficient of expansion.

When visiting other shops, I have accidentally wedged hardies into the hole for dear life. The best way to remove the hardy from the hole is this trick, which insures that you will not bust off the heel of your anvil. Turn the anvil upside down, and take a half inch punch and drive the shank out from UNDERNEATH the heel. That way you do not damage your anvil. Better to call a helper in to help lift the anvil upside down than to destroy a perfectly good anvil!

Whew. I thought a suggestion of sticking the anvil in the freezer was coming up! :D

 

That's pretty much how I handled it when I got it stuck- drove it out from the bottom with a large punch, didn't flip the anvil over though.

[ThomasPowers]

Since I have anvils with both 7/8" hardy holes and 1" hardy holes and *students*  I do not like tapered shanks *except* that I like the shank to extend past the bottom of the hardy hole and the last bit it tapers so you can't rivet a stuck tool in the hardy hole.

 

I have been known to take hardy hole tooling I have purchased and heat it up and use a triphammer to draw out the end of the shank to make sure it will protrude and be easily tappable (as punched hardy holes can be a bit off custom fit hardies may want to bind in other anvils)

 

The most fun was making hardy hole tooling for my large anvil's 1.5" hardy holes:  I have been been buying top tools and using my large screwpress to close up the eye section to fit---I can always drift them back out if I want to use them as top tools and top tooling with mangled impact ends are pretty cheap!