I-Beam Anvils

[NobleRogue]

I have been making small knives on the head of a hammer stuck into a concrete block for a while and recently purchased a small section of I-Beam from the local scrap yard.  I used some car restoration skill to get rid of all the rust and polish up the top to a flat surface.  At 33 pounds, it seems to be pretty decent for hammering out little things as long as I hit in the center where there is the most steel... rings a little more than my ears care for though.  However, I hit it the other day with the edge of my hammer while beveling a knife and put a small half moon dent in it.  Got me wondering...

 

Are I-Beams usually hardened or tempered?  Should I harden this thing before I continue to hammer on it?  I know I-Beams are not ideal (from reading the Anvil Forum here), but I want to make the best out of what I have.

[ThomasPowers]

Hardening means to make more brittle as well.  In general more brittle is NOT something you want an I beam to be!  If you are making knives you should know about hardenable alloys and that most steel is not hardenable.  Your I beam is not hardenable.  You could hard face it with expensive welding rods---but may be able to *buy* an anvil for the cost of that in materials and time.

 

Keep your eye open for a solid chunk of steel to use!

[caintuckrifle]

Look for a forklift tine, they work great and can be had cheap.

[NobleRogue]

Thank you, guys.  I will be honest, I do not know what kind of steel it is... I rather hoped it might be A529, but it is probably the low-alloy type that cannot be heat treated.  I will keep looking for another solid hunk of steel.

[ThomasPowers]

Making another mistake: heat treat does not mean "harden"  You can heat treat steel to make it softer, remove stresses, change the grain size, etc.

[Dodge]

Pretty sure I-beam is usually a36 (mild). It gets its inherent strentgh from its structure, so it doesn't have to be any sort of special alloy or high carbon. It requires no special welding processes either, other than an occasional pre-heat when exceptionally thick members are welded to thinner members. If they need a stronger one for a building or bridge, they build it bigger ;)

[caotropheus]

I - beam may be nice to straighten your blades after forging. Hammer head in the concrete is a much better anvil... Try to get biggest chunck of steel you can find at the scrap yard, on preference forklift tines, a chisel from an hydraulic breaker or a shaft from some vehicle.

 

Good luck

[Bigred1o1]

if it was me i would head back to the scrap yard with a ball peen hammer and wander around quacking on things that struck you as being usable as an anvil i have been pleasantly/not-so pleasantly surprised over how hard some of the scrap i have pulled back to the shop to use for one thing or another

long story short while a forklift tine is nice you could stumble across something ells that will work sand having a hammer lets you test for rebound and hardness right there in the pile without having to invest the time in digging something out that turns out to be dead soft

[Frosty]

Structural steel shapes, "I" beam , wide flange, angle channel, most square and rectangular tubing, etc. are intended to support weight and NOT work harden under flexion. NO, they are NOT hardenable steels, that would make most any structure they were used in dangerously susceptible to fatigue failure.

 

Go back to the scrap yard, take a hammer is a good idea. Another place to "shop" is a heavy duty repair shop, A dozer axle makes an outstanding anvil when mounted on end, flange up. They often replace other attractive field expedient anvils. Rippers, hinge pins, connecting rods, etc. etc.

 

Frosty The Lucky.