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CNC Milling An Anvil


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Certainly; probably more expensive than buying a new one but it can be done is you have an appropriate set up.  Note that you will need a quite large chunk of good steel and will still have to do a proper heat treat after milling it to shape; both expensive in their own right.   You may want to modify the design to economize on the machining---say the italian variant of the london pattern,  (look at the NIMBA anvils for an example). Or doing a preform with a good bandsaw before the machining.

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When I did projects like that there usually ended up being a new rule instituted limiting the amount of a resource a student could "hog"....In particular I remember a brass casting class where they were doing jewelry and we were doing sword/knife fittings...

will they provide a several hundred pound chunk of a good grade of medium to high alloy steel?   Do they have a heat treat furnace that will handle an anvil?

 

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Welcome aboard Larry, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance.

Okay seeing as you're not talking about ruining an existing anvil I won't try to discourage you. In short Yes, you can machine an anvil from a billet.

As Thomas says though, there is a LOT more to an anvil than just the shape. Just heat treating stock that size isn't cheap. Call a heat treater and see what they'd charge to heat treat a, what 200lb.+ block to a targeted RC. Oh you need to use a high carbon steel or high alloy, done any shopping for a billet the size you'll need?

Personally I'd use the mill to machine a wooden pattern and have one cast and if it were popular defray my costs by selling a few. What pattern do you like?

Still, it's a good enough topic to talk about. We all aimed WAY high still do but folk who've been at making things a while learn to do some critical thinking and consider the budget. Right now all you're looking at is having a mill available and you want an anvil. Without considering all the factors involved it looks like an easy project. Heck you might even be right.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Well on Autocad inventor I designed a decent looking London pattern anvil, and it will weigh roughly 367 pounds. my School has 9 CNCs open at any given time so im not worried about that. Mostly im worried about the steel billet price and heat treatment. if anyone has any ideas on where I can do or get those I am open to suggestions! :)

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you should be able to work out the size and weight of the billet you will need to get that out of, it will probably be 1000 and 1500 pounds in weight before machining and could be a lot more, price a billet of that weight in the grade you are making it from, also get a price for heat treat that to the desired state and you may want to sit down when you get replies. weight of billet and machining can be reduced a lot by adding feet to it as separate pieces

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I think that you will find that you can buy one for a lot less than you can milling one out of a billet. Depending on your shape, you will put at least 1/2 of the billet in the chip pan. Then there is the issue of just getting a billet close to the size you need in the alloy needed. Shipping, heat treating, etc....$$$$$$$

I agree with Frosty, mill a pattern, then have it cast. 

30+ years machining experience here. 

 

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May I commend to your attention http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/anvil1/anvil2.html  for a different method.

As such I would find a way to get the billet cheap first and then design the anvil to fit.  Things that come to mind are worn out drop forging or plastic molding dies.  Also check for drops, (A retired machinist down here was selling off large chunks cheap---well cheap compared to buying new.)   Also ask around to see if anyone has any connections with companies that might donate to a student project.   Remember you will [probably want to do your machining in one go so at least several days straight + tool replacement.

Last time I was in Kalamazoo was for the 37th Congress of Medieval Studies---before I moved too far away.  My local scrapyard in NM has a 40000 pound chunk of naval gun that you could buy a chunk off of for 20 cents a pound; but you would need to cut it and transport it...and it wouldn't be as high alloy as a H13 plastic die casting die...

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I'd break the notion that you need an anvil looking anvil and start thinking about features instead.  Then you could build a simple anvil/portable hole and focus on specific tooling rather than trying to get it all in one shot.  That breaks the project into doable segments and you actually get MORE usability. CNC things like swages that fit int he hardy or special horns or bending jigs or ....?  It becomes almost limitless and still puts you in the CNC world you want to work with.  

An old damaged CNC solid tombstone (sometimes they are fairly priced...if they are damaged) might be a good base to work with for the main anvil portion.   Not as cheap as scrap but ya never know what shows up if you put out feelers.

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fabricated an anvil from 2 blocks of steel and a hardened horn, about 150 pounds in total, people have tried to break off the horn by hitting it with a sledge and just flipped the anvil over. I made the anvil for newbies to use so it is made to be abused, you are welcome to try to break my welds

in my new shop wse have 2 sockets in the floor, one has a leg vice in it and the other is used for several things, a selection of sockets is being added to the second post to take many tools, the posts are interchangeable and can be used in 4 different orientations one socket is for a bench shear, another is for tools with a tapered shank, being able to turn a post 90 or 180 degrees or put it in another part of the shop is handy when you have limited space and 8 foot by 4 foot sheets of metal to cut

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All sensible suggestions to take on board.

My 2.5 c :

Good for you for having such an ambitious initiative. Go for it. It will most likely be uneconomical but you will surely learn from the experience.

I suggest to make a much smaller version to find your feet in this process. Say a 30 or 40 k one. Yes, you want a 200 k one but start small. You can always sell your smaller project and then get stuck into the big one.

As far as heat treatment, I remember getting a new 40K farrier anvil heat treated and it wasn't that expensive at all. In Sydney there is a mob called Gearco that did it for me for about $150 Australians. It can't be that more expensive over there. If anything it should be cheaper.  

Get cracking and post pictures of your progress!

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Just mill a lump of steel to the shape you want and use it as is. It will work well enough. Don't worry about heat treating or even using high carbon steel. Mild will do because your not treating it.

Yes if you miss the hot metal you might mark it. But then again you can always clean up the face anytime you like.

In a few years if you find you are still seriously in to smithing, then chase down a manufactured hard faced anvil if you want to.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, the iron dwarf said:

if a 40kg is $150 au I would not be surprised if a 200kg one is $1500, fewer places can do it and it gets exponentially harder to quench big lumps

You are probably right ... flame harden? that is a cheaper process. Or just stick with a small DIY one. I used a 40k anvil for scrolls and architectural work for years. We had several anvils in the shop but "mine" was just 40k

 

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If I were you, I would make a narrow (lets say 4inch wide) faced swedish double horned style anvil like the one in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb54qPC3WPA

 

and instead of the normal feet/base I would weld to the body a rectangular thick plate of steel with holes drilled to bolt the anvil on the stump and to also serve as upsetting block.

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13 hours ago, matei campan said:

If I were you, I would make a narrow (lets say 4inch wide) faced swedish double horned style anvil like the one in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb54qPC3WPA

 

and instead of the normal feet/base I would weld to the body a rectangular thick plate of steel with holes drilled to bolt the anvil on the stump and to also serve as upsetting block.

I like this idea. :D

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