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I Forge Iron

Anvil Rescue, Mousehole?


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Hello! I have scoured the forums as a guest looking for clues on the manufacturer of this anvil. It’s in very bad shape, I purchased it for £90.00. I may have overpaid? Just wondering if anybody on here could identify it? 

The remaining top plate, when a ball bearing is dropped from 12 inches it rebounds to 9 inches. On the rest of the face is rebounds to 6 inches. 

The horn is horrendously damaged too. It looks like it’s had a terrible life. I’m a machinist by trade in the Midlands, UK. I had access to all the equipment, material, heat treatment etc to attempt a repair.

I’m thinking remake the top plate out of something decent like 2767, heat treat it and then have it welded on. I can wire cut a new hardy hole in the new plate. I’m getting ahead of myself though. 

i’ve joined the forums to read and research the best way to go about a repair. Before I start researching I am very curious as to who the manufacturer is?

if anybody could shed some light, I would appreciate your help very much! 

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Man, she has earned a hard living.  I know that the common wisdom  is to just use it as is, but there is a part of me that would love to see it repaired.   I know this is not easily done and often results in ruining the remaining utility.  It just hurts to see her so beat up.  I think it was a good buy.  don't know how much she weighs, but it looks like you could get some good use from it.  No idea the maker.  Good luck.  interested to see the outcome.  

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Normally you would here something along the lines of "use it as is untill you figure out its flaws" but id say in this case you would be better suited to repair the anvil and get her back in serviceable condition. i fear if you tried to use her as she is then you would only mushroom the wrought iron and make it worse. Look up the gunther repair method as it will be the easiest way to repair an anvil. this involves preheating and hard facing the anvil.

If you wanted to go the way of making a new top plate then you will need to fully weld the new piece of steel to the face. I have seen this done by people adding a spacing block say 3/8th" (may need larger on a larger anvil) and welding from the center out. if the top plate is only welded on the radius then it will still be a dead anvil when your done. As for the horn, if you want to repair it, you may be able to machine a new cone shape and weld it on but the waste from machining a horn would be massive. maybe you could fix the face and then have a couple guys come over with sledge hammers and forge a new one. Could put your repair to the test ;) Take note at the lack of pritchel hole as well

 

 

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I can supply a block of 4140 to fit your hardy hole, you are quite local to me so call in if you can, im at NN14 1QF

It is a nice old anvil, you have a hardy hole as long as tools have a good stop collar on them

a cutting table

the bick I would build up with weld maybe, do you have experience of welding wrought iron?

welding it is different from welding steel

the face is harder to deal with as it needs to be hard and fixed all over so it may be better to get a block anvil to use as well

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It's hard to say from here. Is there any hard face left healward from the break? It looks like someone has ground it flat to use. If the face pate is gone completely and you wish to use it I'd have to rebuild it.

I don't know what kind of build up welding rod is compatible with wrought iron, I don't think hard face rod is but I've been wrong before. A layer of good build up rod and a layer or two of Stone on Steel hard facing rod. I don't know if I'd leave the surviving face plate, probably not. Once you start talking about doing this level of repair it's not going to have much antiqueness left.

Another alternative would be to forge weld a new face plate on and that's way out of my league. Not to mention pocket book. Your side of the pond there are probably companies who can do that for you but will they is the question.

Frosty The Lucky.

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markings can be hard to spot, you may need to light it from angles

to see them, some dont show up till years later like our main shop anvil, thought it had a stylized S and was from one maker but later found out it was a D Hill fifth foot.

I normally use a pressure washer after initial pictures, then more pix, then wirebrush, then more pix, then dry and more pix, then chalk or flour and more pix

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That is a good candidate for rescue. :) I agree, the horn can be built up simply using E6011 rod. I use that stuff a lot! Preheat is in order, as is post heat and slow cooling.

 In the "Gunther/ Schuler method", welding directly to the underlying wrought iron can be accomplished by using Stoody 2110 (or equal) 3/16" rod, (I used 5/32" as a base layer over a steel bodied anvil). The top layer recommended being Stoody 1105 (or equal) 1/8" rod.

Link to the Gunther/Schuler method article...

http://www.anvilmag.com/smith/anvilres.htm

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