Flattening My Wooden Stand, Steve's Way !

[Scrambler82]

I have been working on a new stand for my PW, since I purchased the anvil two years ago.

I gathered the wood, construction lumber, and started thinking about how I was going to start the project.

I started thinking my garage floor is level, checked with a level, should be able to get the wood glued together and flat.

Predrilled over size holes to allow for adjustments, should work.

Got some threaded Rod, nut, flats and locks, let's get started.

Spread the construction adhesive, slide all of the pieces together, snugged up the nuts banged the boards to make sure they were all sitting flat, tightened the nuts and added clamps, all,done right... Wrong !

The stand wobbled worse than if I didn't even try to square it up during the gluing and clamping, what to do next !

In another thread about leveling an Anvil Stand, Steve posted a method he used with a router to level.

Thanks to Steve and his write up with pictures I attempted his method and it turned out very well, a level stand.

 

First I took a set of Saw Horses, reenforced the lower shelves with 3/4" plywood and some 2x4s to hold the shelf in place.

 

I then added strips of wood to the tops of the saw horses to add height to the top to clear he Sand and setup the Router with angle iron slides so it can move back and forth on the wooden strips.

I then placed the block of wood I call an Anvil Stand on the lower reenforced shelf, plumbed it and checked the bottom, facing upward, to find where the the high points were and marked the block low spot as the starting point.

 

I set the router to one third the amount I wanted to remove and started the process of moving the router back and forth on the block of wood, proceeding slowly, three-eighths of an inch cuts across the block and cutting from the same side each time.

 

 

Three passes on the bottom of the stand ended in a reasonably flat surface.

 

From here the block was flipped so the top could be cut flat.

Again we got started by checking the plumb of the block, it was not perfect but the bubble was within the level lines, and as it turned out it was off the same amount the Saw Hoirses were off, so I'm good, found the low point and marked it.

After three passes with the router, taking one third cuts, all from the same side across the block, the top was flat and parallel to the bottom, great !

As it turns out it was a time consuming process, easier than I thought to get it done, and I am a very happy metal bender.

This picture shows the direction I used in my milling process.  

 

This method worked out well, at this point I had a flat solid stand to use in my cement floored shop so it should stay flat.

Take your time, slow movement, shallow cuts, and small side wards cuts, i.e. Half the blade width max.

What ever you use for sliding rails, i.e. angle iron, get pieces long enough to move the router beyond the block edge, you don't need to be stop for lack of space and find you didn't make a complete cross cut.

When I setup the block I attempted to find level, based on the shelf I made, I could get close but still had a rocking.  I realized that I needed a datum to start from, my main piece of wood, the center core, was what I wanted to be straight up and square to the mass,so I plumbed the sides of the centerpiece of wood, shimmed it for perpendicular its to the shelf and started cutting/milling.  I ended up, after the third pass, with a black with the sides of the center core perpendicular to the bottom.   At this point I flipped the block and plumbed the sides to the to, before Illini, and found that the block was sitting flat on the shelf and the sides of the center core were plumb to the flat of the bottom.  All I needed to do was level the top portion of the block and wham bam, I got my flat, non-rocking block.  (I hope that isn't too confusingly) !

The block was flat on the ground, didn't rock, and I was happy but I needed to add some additional wood to the bottom, shouldn't be a biggy right !  I added the wood to the bottom and yes... It was-a-rock'n again !

Flipped the block over placed it in the make shift milling machine and raised the side to compensate for the extra wood on the bottom, AND started the router, proceeded to remove more wood to get it back to level again and it worked and worked well, again thank you Steve !

This method appears to be the easiest in the long run; a little more costly than a belt sander, that is if you don't have all of the pieces but it is by far the best way I have used to achieve flat parallel surfaces on my Wooden Anvil Stand !

 

Thanks for reading, hope you can understand what I am trying to say and don't disgaurd this method until you have tried it, it works great !

GrevB