Rebuilt Fisher Norris Anvil

[pscampsr]

I was asked to post the pictures of the rebuild of my Fisher Norris anvil.

While on a salvage hunt last year, found a poor Fisher Norris in the salvage yard. Bought it for $25.00 and brought it home. I don't have a picture of what it looked like then. Lets just say it was in terrible shape. The table was cracked, both edges were broken, chipped, and cracked. 

We ground out cracks (see the photos) and broken areas until it looked like a very poor boat anchor.

My friends George and Bert grinding and watching to get to good metal.

As you can see it was a real mess. I finished removing the tool steel table to avoid cracks in the future due to separation from the cast iron body. 

From here it was a matter of pre-heating to 450 degrees and laying down a butter layer of Nickel 55 to prepare it for building up to reface. Made sure to get a good NI55 layer on all cast iron surfaces. 

Spent hours laying down 7018 and Stoody 2110 hardfacing to bring it back to a level where we could mill it back flat.

 

 

(Note: Stoody 2110 has a great deal of manganese. It is very temperature sensitive and remembers heat. It can / will crack if it gets to 500 deg. more than once or twice.)

In the future, if I ever do this again, I will use 7018 for the build up and cover with a hard face without so much manganese. 

This is the first rough cut on the face. Added some fill beads on the edges after the first cut. 

I will post the final pictures and text in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matthew D]

That will be a nice anvil when you are done.  It probably won't have the rebound of a hardened tool steel face, but it will work.

[VaughnT]

That's amazing work.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

My fisher has some bad chipping on the edges that are too deep to grind to a radius, and that makes things troublesome when doing certain movements.  Never thought about building up the edges simply because I didn't want to mess with cast iron.

Hurry up and post more!

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Vaughn, what about just making a tool to drop in the hardy hole,  or a saddle that sits over the top when you need a better edge? 

[VaughnT]

10 hours ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Vaughn, what about just making a tool to drop in the hardy hole,  or a saddle that sits over the top when you need a better edge? 

I do have a square block for the hardy hole and have been thinking about making a larger saddle.  It's a whole lot easier than finding someone with the right experience to weld up the edges.

Honestly, until seeing this thread, I wasn't even sure if welding up a Fisher was realistically possible.

[jlpservicesinc]

Nice work.. Looking forwards to the finished results..     

7 hours ago, VaughnT said:

I do have a square block for the hardy hole and have been thinking about making a larger saddle.  It's a whole lot easier than finding someone with the right experience to weld up the edges.

Honestly, until seeing this thread, I wasn't even sure if welding up a Fisher was realistically possible.

Today it's just about possible to weld anything together,, Gas weld, mig, tig, spray arc, etc etc.. The variety of rods,,  Etc etc.. It really just becomes a time frame or knowing someone who knows the right rod or wire to get the objects to stick together..  

There are tig rods for cast iron now.. Filler wire/welding rods have come a really long ways..