I purchased a somewhat abused 200# anvil not too long ago, and from the amount of swayback it had developed I decided to have it ground flat and resurfaced. Once the machining was done, I had a friend build up the face with a high impact resistance high manganese rod. However, the face is now far too soft, because I picked the rod without noticing that it was intended to be work hardened. Does anyone know the proper alloy welding rod to use for an anvil face? I figure it'll be fine to put another layer over the soft stuff.
Thanks for the help.

Why not just hammer the face evenly all over? Workhardening a soft anvil face is an old trick. Takes a bit of time but it does get better the more use it sees.

Rob Gunter and Ernie Leimkuhler (sp?) have both published guides to hardfacing anvils you could hunt down.

haha well i made my anvil myself, i used macay 118 yes its a workhardening rod, i considerd hammering the whole thing but desided to go out and buy macay 140, and will acualy be picking them up today, they are made to overlay the 118 and sould have a Rc of 58 to 63

A lot of info can be found in the Iforgeiron Blueprint section



BP0101 Anvil Repair

the best trick i have found for work hardening is a small hand held sander suchas the mighty mouse with a non abbrasive pad and some pariffin wax on the pad go evenly over the surface the vibrations will harden it up with about 20 min of work

will little vibrations harrden it up that much, i though it would take days and days of hammer blows

I agree with Thomas. Get some work done on it. It will harden. What have you got to lose? The spots you use most should harden first.

I've been using the 118 rod but I have a air hammer I put a flat tool used for aircraft in to hammer it. I get the surface close, hammer it then finish with a belt sander.

I think my plan of attack from here is rebuild the face, work harden the deposited steel, and grind it all back down. I would just work harden the current face, but the underlaying carbon steel is showing in some spots and I think it may have gotten a little thin from everything we (and others) have done to it. My only concern is that I'll work harden, grind it, and then find that I just ground off the work hardened layer, leaving it too thin again.

I've contemplated welding a sheet of S7 or similar tool steel to the face, but I hear that technique leaves a lot of dead spots.