Pig Iron Anvil?

[Paul TIKI]

Hello All,

Super new to the craft.  I have a 130lb slab of pig Iron (dad's words, I don't know enough to be sure) that dad used to whack things on when I was a kid.  It's about 18" by 10 " by 2".  I picked it up after he passed a few years ago.  Since then it has been used to basically create a dead spot in the grass on the side of the shed.  Would that be a workable anvil for a newbie who wants to learn and basically has a $0.00 budget?  Should I brace it and stand it on edge, or just lay it flat to begin with?

Edited September 30, 2020 by Mod34
Split into new topic

[JHCC]

Welcome aboard, Paul!

Certainly sounds like a good possibility, especially stood on end. Can you show us some pictures?

[ThomasPowers]

Pig Iron is not as good as steel; but it will get you started while waiting to source a better one.

[Paul TIKI]

It'll probably be tomorrow before I can get some pics up.  

BTW, thanks for the explanation about the depth of the anvil helping with shaping the hot metal!  I never would have thought of standing it on end.  For some reason I thought a broad striking surface would be more important.

My son and I played around with just banging on some rebar heated in a fire pit on the broad surface.  It kind of sort of worked and was kind of therapeutic, so I decided to do some more research before spending money.

Thanks a ton.  Now over to the forge topics to see how I can best build one with what I have on hand.

[JHCC]

Look hard at the posts about the JABOD (Just A Box Of Dirt) forge. It's basically taking what you've done already and moving the pit up to table height. It is, shall we say, dirt cheap.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

One thing about true "Pig Iron" is it's high carbon content, 3.8%-4.7% making it kinda brittle. Most pig iron ingots were not flat, but rounded so I doubt it is true pig iron. Might check it with a spark test and look for chips if it has been hammered on.

[Paul TIKI]

So here is a couple of pics of the slab.  Hard to tell if any pits in the surface are from impact or just the fact that I know that for at least 25 years the thing sat outside.  I have no idea how to get it reliably set on edge.  I was thinking I could use a piece of timber my son brought home that is about a foot square and 4 foot long, carve out a channel and pack it with silicone.  I worry about stability though.

I remember dad using it as a weight in the back of his truck in the winter months.  Also as a device to use to pin down things he was gluing with JB weld.  A place to smash recalcitrant circuit boards on (he was an electrical engineer)  and occasionally as a temporary ground plane when no alternative presented itself.  It even spent a brief amount of time as a bullet stop, angled downward of course, in a target box made from an old dishwasher.  A creative man was me dad, so this old lump of metal actually has some sentimental value for me.

[ThomasPowers]

Got an angle grinder?  The spark test is a good fast way to differentiate cast iron from steel---and you can clean up a surface for use doing it!

Check through the improvised anvil thread for mounting ideas.  If I had that I would build a "stump" of dimensional lumber and use a saw to cut a slot in it for it to stand in.

 

 

[Paul TIKI]

18 hours ago, JHCC said:

Look hard at the posts about the JABOD (Just A Box Of Dirt) forge. It's basically taking what you've done already and moving the pit up to table height. It is, shall we say, dirt cheap.

Thanks!  I have an old propane grill on legs I was thinking of using.  I was thinking of using cat litter mixed with sand to line the heck out of it, insert a chunk of steel water pipe through the bottom the full length, drilling several holes in it so the air can move evenly through it and hook that up to a big hand crank bellow my son brought home,  and angle some fire brick at about 45 degrees on either side as a place to put wood chunks or charcoal.  That should get me a forge big enough for me to do a variety of stuff since I already have the bits I need to do it and all it would cost me is time.

Here is the first thing I swung a hammer at.  Just a chunk of rebar that we were able to get to a good red color in a cement fire pit that used to be a water meter surround, about 16 inches around and 18 inches tall with cutouts on either side.  I put a screen set on some bricks to hold the wood off the ground and hooked the bellows tub to one of the inlets.  I blocked the other inlet with a brick and some dirt.  It didn't get hot enough, but the heat we did get was enough to start cracking the cement itself.  It's just a shape I was able to pound out.

Oh, By the Way, Thanks for splitting this off of the Improvised Anvil Thread.

I'll have to break out the angle grinder and clean it up.  what kind of spark characteristics should I look for?  Long sparks, complex sparks, bright sparks?  I'm not sure what I should look for.

[JHCC]

Cast iron will throw short sparks with some degree of bursting. 

You can also do a drill test: a sharp drill will produce curly shavings in steel, but crumbly dust in cast iron.

[Paul TIKI]

Cool.  Thanks!  

Edited October 1, 2020 by Mod34
Excessive quoting

[ThomasPowers]

Almost every welding book will cover spark testing and there are plenty of resources on the net as well.  For a general method of learning: take a piece you *know* is cast iron and try it and see what the sparks look like and compare it with the unknown piece.  Repeat with mild steel, repeat with car spring(s), repeat with a piece of file.  You should see the progression in "burstiness".  To confuse things try: real wrought iron, high speed steel and cast iron. However you should be able to tell those apart by other means.

[Paul TIKI]

Looks like I got some reading to do

 

[ThomasPowers]

Learning to test scrap metal can be a huge help as a blacksmith.  I've run into some very odd substitutions in the scrapyard---like a piece of ag equipment where one brace was wrought iron and the other HC steel!

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

For some reason, to me your anvil looks like it may be fine wrought iron, which was made from pig iron. If you have an angle grinder with a cup wire wheel, take off the rust & crud then look closely for a mild grain in the iron. No matter what it is made from a fitting name for it would be Pig Iron Anvil.

[JHCC]

I see what you mean, IDFC, but I think those striations are more like tooling marks from the rolling mill.

[Paul TIKI]

Who knows.  I do know that Dad got it before I turned 10 (I'm almost 50).  It seems reasonable that he got it when he worked at a Gas Plant in West Texas for a summer job in 1954, but it could have been at just about any time during a 23 year Army career after that.  Outside of that, I don't know any more of it's history other than it was useful enough for him to lug it around during at least 3 moves across country.  

[Chris Williams]

Those marks make it look like a rolled product form to me, too. 

[Frosty]

Not to be a correction here, it's an FYI. Pig iron is derived from the point of a pour, it's not a type of iron. If you think of it like a sprue or riser in green sanding you'll have a handle on what I'm saying. 

In the "old" days, when an iron melter was tapped it didn't run into a ladle, it ran into a channel in the floor, the Sow, then as if flowed, side side channels divided the tap into individual "ingots" small enough to work. "Pigs" which were Pig (whatever metal had been melted) 

I don't think anyone in the modern world has been producing iron pigs AKA pig iron, in probably a century or more. Pouring ingots from a ladle or running a continuous caster is faster, and much cheaper on many fronts. 

It doesn't really matter though, human languages, American English especially, changes constantly and "pig iron" has become a common term for any large piece of cast iron of indeterminate shape. 

Before you try drilling that block grind the rust and crud off it or it'll dull the drill bit almost instantly. It'll make a dandy anvil.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Paul TIKI]

OK, so I was looking at the cement cylinder I use as a fire pit and the Slab anvil should fit just fine in it if I fill it up with something.  If I have it sticking up about 4 inches it'll be at the right height according to the knuckle test.  Actually I measured up to my wrist.

So now on to fill materials.  It's a cement surround.  The anvil will not be resting directly on the cement.  What should I use as fill to support and stabilize.  I'm thinking sand and pea gravel.  for additional stability I found a solid 2 1/2 inch (maybe 3, didn't have a tape measure on me) solid round steel bar that is around 4 foot long that I'll drive into to the ground, position the anvil right up against it and fill the rest.  That way I get a little extra surface area and a circular surface to bend stuff around.   

So does anyone have thoughts on the fill material?  Am I on the right track.  Would just pea gravel work or do I need to blend it with sand, or do I use something else?

[JHCC]

Sand on its own is fine, but make sure you get "sharp" sand -- in other words, the kind you get from crushed rock rather than from a stream bed or a beach. The latter ("riverine" or "littoral" sand, respectively) has rounded particles that shift position as they roll over each other, while sharp sand will compact down into an interlocked arrangement that's much more rigid. If you do want to go with pea gravel, do the same: crushed rather than natural round. Adding sharp sand to the gravel won't hurt either. 

On 10/3/2020 at 5:29 PM, Frosty said:

I don't think anyone in the modern world has been producing iron pigs AKA pig iron, in probably a century or more.

Other than the experimental archaeologists, that is. There have been some pours at Hopewell Furnace in Pennsylvania after it was restored by the National Park Service, recreating everything from burning a supply of charcoal to pouring the kind of pig iron that was their last product before the furnace shut down in 1883. I don't think they've done one in a long time, but they still have a sow and pigs in the earth in front of the hearth.

[Paul TIKI]

My normal source would be a nearby Menards.  Is there something I should look for or is there somewhere else I should try to source from.  I need a few cubic feet, not an entire yard, like I would get froma landscaping supply place I know about (They only sell by the yard or more)  I saw leveling sand for pavers, is that what you mean by a sharp sand?  I'm guessing sandbag sand or play sand is going to be more rounded

 

[Chris Williams]

"Play sand" is crushed, at least whenever I buy it. In fact, I don't know of any local place where I could get bagged riverine sand readily. Your sources may vary.

Find a bag with a tear and inspect a little bit of it. You'll be able to feel if it is sharp or not. 

[ThomasPowers]

Shoot there used to be a sand and gravel plant on my Grandfather's river front land along the Arkansas, they pumped a lot of riverine sand and sold it by the dump truck load.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Another way to mount it, if you have access to tree stumps would be like this 110 pound piece from a bulldozer. It took all of about 20 minutes with my chainsaw and it's very stable with wood wedges. Easy to pull it out and lay flat for a striking anvil.

I even made a small bick out of sucker rod for it.