Anvil repair

[clifford]

I have an anvil of Chinese manufacture, and have abused it on top of it being soft. Ignorance, I suppose.

I will be attempting to resurface it tommorrow. I have read of anvils being re-hardened. Has anyone attempted this? Any ideas?

I have no idea of what kind of steel this anvil is cast from, and no money to buy a replacement. Any advice would be appriciated.

I was thinking of sitting it on a charcoal fire, upside down 'till hot (what temp, I have no idea. I do have the ability to measure surface temp.) then quenching, somehow.

Thank you.

[philip in china]

Is this one of the HF type Chinese anvils? Here I have several of them. They are close to useless except as a table on which to work- but then you know that already. I have spent a lot of time on this question and my honest advice is to fabricate a cover for it. This can be done quite simply by getting a suitably wide piece of heavy structural channel and welding a piece of pipe underneath so that the pipe engages on the horn (so called ) of the anvil. Then make a small peg to go through the hardie hole. I forged one out of a circular drop and an offcut of rebar. A peg or bolt or whatever goes through the base of the peg to secure it in place. It looks dreadful, performs badly but works. I have a 2*2*0 Brooks which I use for my work and I actually have a cover of this type on there which is padlocked in place to prevent the locals from abusing my anvil when I am not there.

As for doing anything more- frankly they are just not worth the effort.

[Frosty]

You'll almost undoubtably be wasting your time trying to harden a chinese anvil. the chances are close to 100% it's cast iron and not hardenable.

A solution I've been toying with for a couple years now is to braze or silver solder a piece of HC steel plate to the face of a cast iron anvil.

To make it work though you'll need to grind the anvil's face to close tolerance. It needs to match the steel plate as well as possible because the thicker the braze or silver solder the weaker the join.

If you're wondering how well a brazed or silver soldered joint will stand up to pounding it's how carbides are attached to drill bits for soils exploration. I seriously doubt a human being can match a 453 detroit diesel for hammering something, especially into frozen glacial till.

Glacial till being the hardest unconsolidated soil formation there is, It's been compacted by a couple miles of glacial ice for a few thousand or tens of thousands of years.

Anyway, I can tell you from nearly 20 years of personal experience a brazed or silver soldered join will take the devil's own hammering without failing. It should do just fine for holding an anvil face down.

Something to consider.

Frosty

[Johannes]

the word presse papier comes to mind

weld a big slap of carbon steel on it... it may serve some temporary use then

[clifford]

Thank you,
Welding, or soldering, a cover seems more reasonable than hardening this thing. It may very well be cast iron, though it isn't brittle.
What kind of welding rod would be recommended for general welding of an unknown metal? I am restricted to welding with an acetylene unit. Or a solder? The only solder I have now is labeled; Oatey 2982 Safe-Flo silver lead free solder. I have only used this for filling gaps in the tang area of knifes, so I don't know how well it would perform elsewhere.
I admit I know nothing about welding/soldering, though I have done it many times.

[Dave M]

if you already have an oxy unit I would braze the plate to the top of the anvil. I would use a flux covered brazing rod made for cast iron or dissimilar metals also I would preheat both pieces and after brazing allow to cool down as slowly as possible

[ThomasPowers]

Which would also do a great job of annealing your surface plate making it soft. I don't know if the anvil/brazed joint would take a hardening quench shock to try to harden it.

My basic take on this is "I want to spend more money and time trying to make this usable than it would cost to find a better substitute" Ni rod for welding on cast iron is NOT cheap!

I walked along the rr tracks once and found a broken knuckle of a rr car coupler, it made a decent anvil and was free! A large chunk of Dozer from a scrap yard or repair place can make a great anvil and cost less as scrap than buying welding supplies and gas.

Remember that most "anvils" in use in the world do not look like the london pattern anvil---for example the japanese swordmakers anvil looks like a big rectangular chunk of steel---yet the work they do on it is considered pretty good.

check out this For an out of the box anvil Marco/Krieger Armory - Rapiers and Accessories

Save the HF for a cutting surface

[FrogPondForge]

The topic of relative cost of repair comes up. I got my son's cast steel 110# HF Russian submarine anvil from a HF store for $56. It is far better than any of the cast iron ASO's and CHEAP. They are "discontinued" on HF's website. My local store had sold the last of theirs 6 mos ago. I called a bunch of stores and found 3 in Vineland, NJ. It was about a 50mi drive, but still a bargain. You might try the same thing. There is a "store finder" on the website (somewhere). Start calling closest first and work your way out. East Tenn. might be a little lean on HF stores, check it out. I had my eye on a big cube of scrap at the local liquidators, would have cost as much or more than the Russian sub. Worth a shot. MIKE

FrogPond'sDad

[steponmebbbboom]

check out this For an out of the box anvil Marco/Krieger Armory - Rapiers and Accessories

Save the HF for a cutting surface

as a forklift mechanic i can tell you that is a very unusual eye design for a fork. since the heel is still nice and thick i am assuming that it was scrapped due to being seized to the crossbar... but most eye type forks are rounded at the top and the eye itself is offset rearwards and welded to the fork before heat treating.

preparing a fork in a similar manner and inverting it before welding to the tie plate will still give you plenty of flat surface to work, and if you have access to a laser cutter you can cut the heel with a large tooth that you can shape into a decent horn, but most forks will not have enough thickness to safely allow you to include a step. others have made anvil stands and such from forks, rthibeau's gallery shows an amusing variation. for a post anvil i would suggest using a class IV or higher fork; the typical class II/III do not have enough thickness in my opinion to take any serious pounding.

[ThomasPowers]

Well, I am that "Thomas" they mention...

Actually the forklift was scrapped by driving it off the bluff behind a shutting down portion of a steel casting company along with a lot more "junk" that sat for 20 or so years until I moved a couple of miles away and felt it calling to me. I assume the two forks were sliding with no problem before that.

I particularly liked that style as it did give a larger face with the mass directly underneath it. I have the original fork in my scrap pile and gave on the location of the scrounge site when I moved 1500 miles away. Marco and Krieger did well with that knowledge!

BTW I cut that round stock with a 30" hacksaw---a bowsaw frame with a bandsaw blade in it.

An Anvils step was designed to have a soft spot for cutting so as to not hurt the hardened face or the hardened tool. No need for it as you can use a soft piece of steel as a cutting plate. Many european anvils don't have it---it's not a necessary part of the anvil. I used to use it for some bending tasks till I found a couple of swages that did a better job. I cut on a cutting plate.

far better to get a hardy hole if you can cut one!

Thomas

[nonjic]

Philip, can you not track down the "real" chinese anvils???? im just not having it that a country with a population of 1bn folks do not have a functional, cheap steel anvil sold in the tens of thousands of units per month for 'domestic' use. (not the C.I cr&p sold to the gullable west coz its perceived cheap)

The bulk of early industrial development starts with the blacksmith in one form or another, and the chinese are not all using cast iron wear out in 3 month tools. find the real anvils phil!!!!!!

[matt87]

John, the history of Chinese metallurgy is significantly different from that of the West. Basically they came at iron opposite to how we did; by and large we had wrought iron until about AD1500 when cast iron gradually found uses (and ways of making it). In China they seem to have made cast iron exclusively until a similar point in history. (They did fine small amounts of iron for certain limited applications, but it weren't cheap.) I suspect that there is not so much of a tradition of forging iron over there as here. I also suspect that wrought iron objects were often traded in once it became available, but I don't really know much about this area of technology, time and space.

(And before the nitpickers start ( ;-) ) yes, cast iron was around in Europe before the mid 2nd millenium. It was though by-and-large considered a waste product of iron-smelting resulting from too high a concentration of charcoal to ore, too high a smelting temperature or both. There is also an exception to the exception in that it is possible [Japanese swordsmiths do something similar to this, and we think we have evidence of the Romans doing it] that cast iron was semi-deliberately created in order that blooms formed adjacent to cast iron had higher carbon contents, what was often called steely iron. The Romans even had a word, ferrum noricum which probably refers to steel make in Norica in this way; the naming strategy is a little like that of Damascus steel.

The videos I have seen of Chinese people forging blades etc. for export usually show what we might refer to as an expediant or improvised anvil, though it is as valid as yours, mine or Sam Yellin's. Large sledgehammer heads, chunks of this-n-that etc. I wouldn't be surprised if this is in fact the traditional Chinese anvil if you see what I mean. After all, the London-pattern anvil is quintessentially a British and American thing, and is younger in centuries than ironworking is in millenia.

[ThomasPowers]

The ancient chinese even worked out a way to decarburize the surface of cast iron objects leaving a steel layer over the cast iron core---might have been used for anvils though I know it was used for plows and some weapons. Later and in India I have seen an example of decarburizing a cast iron grill to make it stronger.

[steponmebbbboom]

Well, I am that "Thomas" they mention...

Thomas this needs to be said, i think you did a brilliant job on that fork, and in no way intended to down talk it. my comments are solely based on the typical supply of forks most smiths will encounter, and how they can get similar results with forks inferior to yours. i hope that buries the hatchet on that one. a hardie hole could be cut with a water jet to the correct taper, but using a laser cutter on that area of the fork will disrupt the temper and make it susceptible to bending. this holds true for cutting the horn as well, but disrupting the temper here will allow you to shape the horn more easily and make it bend from abuse rather than snap. the heel needs to be as strong as possible especially since a scrapped fork will be worn thin in this area. D

[Frosty]

A brazed or silver soldered join will take more pounding than a burly human can inflict two handed in a century of a angry days.

Quench the face after the braze / silver solder takes, annealing the HC face negates the purpose.

If you try this clip the rod into short pieces and lay them between the face and body. Put it in the fire and watch for the braze or solder to weep out of the joint.

My plan was to make an angle iron frame to support it upside down so the weight of the anvil would assist in making a good join.

Anyway, properly prepared and made, brazed or silver soldered joints are far stronger than a mere human can damage.

Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

Hey I'm not in a snit---I didn't do anything to that fork; Marco and Krieger asked me about an improvised anvil and I told them where it was and they did all the work.

I still have mine and plan to make it into a medieval double horned stake anvil after I get power to the shop. I already have a Y1K cube of steel for an early anvil.

Those forks weigh about 180# apiece as the crow drags them off the side of a bluff and through the woods to where some fool will load them into their pickup (I did the dragging and loading of mine myself), and is thicker than all the heels of my anvils save the 500# Fisher. I don't think there will be a problem with it getting beaten down if you put a hardy hole in it. I'm assuming that you would truncate the piece sticking out sideways back before the taper starts as having that much haning out would increase the bounce vibration and *noise*!

Mounting them vertically so you get more mass right under the hammer is the way to go in my opinion, though a piece to flatten on would be handy too.

My comment is that the cutting step is not needed on such an anvil and ---as mentioned even not a good idea.

So No Harm No Foul and there is more than one way to skin a cat; or as Kipling wrote "There are nine and ninety ways of composing tribal lays and everylast one of them is *right*!"

[steponmebbbboom]

ok tom, not sure if we are entirely clear on terminology, when referring to the "heel" of a fork this area is the part that is in contact with the ground when the mast is fully collapsed and tilted slightly back towards the truck. a properly adjusted chain will hold the fork approximately 1/2" above the ground with the mast at rest and perfectly vertical; however as the chains wear and stretch, the forks tend to lower to the ground and drag along the floor, which wears the heel down. this is the most common reason for scrapping a fork as wear beyond 10% in this area begins to have a severe effect on its carrying capacity.

if one wishes to cut a hardie hole this would be the place to do it, but as the rest of the work surface cantilevers beyond this point, it is potentially a weak area and cold cutting the hole with a water jet will create the strongest work surface. you are absolutely correct about ring; even a class IV fork like the one you have, if inverted, would IMO only have a practical maximum work surface of about a linear foot, with maybe another six inches for a horn, beyond that it will create a LOT of noise.

im sure there are some who would scoff at the methods i am describing, choosing instead to pick up a torch, but i am confident that for those with access to the proper equipment the extra effort will result in a better anvil. Forks are made from heat treated 5160 steel and are VERY tough, using a water jet will give you full advantage of this strength.

cheers

[nonjic]

disregarding the history of chinese metallurgy, I still maintain there are a billion people there, and a decent percentage of them must be metalworkers. Cast steel makes a nice anvil, and there are many hundreds of thousands of tons of steel poured in china every year (or month, I have no idea of the actual total foundary output, but its vast). They must make a 'block' that is suitable and efficent to forge against with a hand hammer, in bulk, and very cheaply.

On fork tine anvils, the second you haul that to a waterjet cutters, pay the minimum setup fee for the cut (if they will do it, which most wont), haul it back and fabricate it into a working tool you could have bought a very nice 'commercial' traditional style anvil, and had some change. might be good for a novelty item, but commercially not viable for 99.9% of people, IMHO