burned up 6 cut off discs and turned a piece of rail into a small anvil.  mounted it on a stump about the right height for my grandsons.   

You have a good excuse then, lol. We do crazy stuff or the grand kids

All Right Charles.  I'll take a good excuse any day.  Heck, I've often gone with a poor excuse as it is better than no excuse.  I am not sure what that rail is, it is too big for the rail plates I have and seems taller, a more heavy gauge than other sections I've seen.  Times have changed.  I live in a rail road town and when I was a kid you could stroll around and pick up rail road scrap at your leisure.  rail, spikes clips plate, car parts springs pins and such.  Now it is all buttoned down pretty good.  free and easy when I didn't want it, under wraps when I do.

 

That looks like a lot of work. Who put that silly idea into your head?!?!

Crane rail can be larger than regular rail.  Any markings on the side of it?

Looks like hard work I made this from Crane rail.  Like 15 or so disks 

I went another way, less than one cut off disk, less than one hard disk and less than one flap disk...

now, as I said, to appease the grand child’s need for one like granddad’s I can forgive you for all the extra work and consumables....

That’s my Next build thanks for the inspiration 

20 hours ago, sfeile said:

That looks like a lot of work. Who put that silly idea into your head?!?!

It blew in on a NorEaster!!

@Charles R. Stevens I saw your anvil thread.  Looks good.  How will you mount it?

 

@Tock Looks like more than I bit off.  Good looking. 

 

Right now it rides around in my horse trailer, as I can hot or cold adjust shoes with it. I have a fabricated stump with a track plate in top as a tool holder and one mounted in the side with lag screws to hold the anvil vertical nut slow me to slide it up and flip it to access the othe tool set. If I need to straitened somthing I hang it vertical and stick horizontal. 

1 hour ago, MotoMike said:

It blew in on a NorEaster!!

That's good.... I thought some wanna-be smith was putting ideas in your head.

I think this shows the difference between a longtime anvil user designing an improvised anvil and someone designing one without the background---look at all that unsupported heel for instance.  Out of the box thinking vs constrained by the box/idea of what an anvil looks like.  Very usable and a beautiful job---but one that didn't necessarily need to be done.

the thought about crane rail got me curious.  Man, there is fodder for some real research there.  I think it is possible that it is rail road type rail.  Seems less than 100 pound rail is not common any more, and the sizes increase in 10 pound increments instead of 5 pound as they once did.  but looking at common North American rail sizes on wiki, I see they don't really follow it.  In the old days the total weight of the rail had certain percentages going to the head, web and foot no matter the weight per yard.  Now in the bigger rails they've allowed the head to have a smaller percentage which changes the profile. I think those old time prescribed percentage allotment cause rail to look a certain way to me.  And that when it didn't, it caught my eye.   Mine could be some of the more modern heavy rail used for fast main line rail systems.   I see it has 2009  on the web.  I see too that carbon and manganese content is specified by weight if I understand correctly since the 60s, so in theory, if you knew the weight per yard of your rail, you could know what the carbon/manganese content was.  In N.A. anyway. 

@Charles R. Stevens Not sure if you are refereing to Tock's or Mine.  I was conscious of the heel hanging out there and in fact the web does go to the edge of the heal, sort of a corbel and not fully cut away under the heal.  I tried to minimize how much web I took away there and on the horn too.   You'd asked about markings, the only thing on this small section was 2009 visible on the side and possibly hot rolled in?   The scrap pile it was in was all rail road related, but of course that doesn't mean anything in a scrap yard. 

 

Tock's; Now there would be a use case for that overhang if it was tapered like the heel of london pattern anvils generally are---I keep a 91 pound A&H near my 500# Fisher just to use the slim heel on it for doing fork tines and other tasks that need it. (Yes I should build a bridge for the big anvil; but the smaller one is right there anyway...)

Hi MotoMike, you are blessed with your grandson, I still have to wait for mine. But how ever, my daughter Lisa 15 y/o also give me a hand in the shop too, if necessary (missing the third hand). See my holiday job last June waiting for the plasma cutted prefab parts of the power hammer. Made one, nice to have for the own shop, and another one for a very good friend of my. It costs me 3 days’ work and about 15 pieces of 10inch cutting disks.

Even our great role models Charles and Thomas are  not always satisfied with the setup of it, I don’t know better. After all they teach me that the surface of the rail is harder than the base to deal with the abrasion of the train wheels and the base/foot of the rail road track is soft to absorb the shocks and be ductile to avoid fractures.

Enjoy every, smiting hour with your grandson, this is the real quality time. Cheers, Hans   

@Hans Richter  Thanks very much for the kind word.  I know I am blessed with the gandkids.  Two of the boys are 8 year old and full of beans.  I know the rail anvil may not be optimal, but I think it will do what I need.  Your's are works of art.  I'd not thought of beveling the heal as you dd.  Now about that smithy.  Do  you have a cleaning person?  Man, I don't think I've ever had my shop that clean.   It looks great. I'm envious.  can you tell me is that power hammer?  or is it a press?  Air powered?  Thanks again

 

@MotoMike Hi Mike,

Keep on spoiling the boys and protect them with good advice, stuff and proper PPE’s.

About the shop, first of all hi is quit new 7 months old and I use him only for smiting and welding. For the dirty stuff like grinding, cutting, mould making, casting and the solid fuel forge I have a second shop (nice shed covered with a roof and half open walls 20ft x 7ft) this space looks a bit more your shop I think.

I do not have a nice cleaning lady, but I’m so proud to be a kraut and on my own ‘man cave’ that I clean the shop every time after stopping work.

Regarding the power hammer it is a Larry Zoeller cloon self-engineered and made after the trial & error method. Finally I have a fine working strong and controllable hammer and I shared already several posts about it on IFI (look on my profile, will share also a PM with you about the specifications and improvements)

Cheers, Hans

VID_20180107_200831.3gp

Once when I had a bunch of the kids and grandkids together for Thanksgiving I was doing a smithing class for the Sons-in-Law and had brought some miniature anvils and hammers (2-4 oz ballpeens!)  and thick no lead plumbing solder for the grandkids to play with outside the work zone.

A wise and kind grandfather you are

In general their mothers have NOT allowed me to give them hammers to take home with them...yet...I did make a froe for one set to get used to splitting kindling for fires...