January 27, 20233 yr I'm guessing this is antique track? I've seen varying dimensions of rail track online and know nothing about it. I was able to take this piece from the school I work at. It's been sitting in the shop forever. It weighs about 12 lbs. I'm sure this is far from ideal, but my wife will kill me for spending more money on a hobby if I go buy a chunk of steel at the moment. Given that this is what I have to work with, how should I mount it? Is surface mounting on a heavy piece of wood enough? I thought about cutting a "T" shaped keyway into a log with a chainsaw and driving it into place so the the underside of the top rail would make contact with the log. Make sense? Worth the effort? I would like to continue anvil/ steel hunting, but I have no clue where to look. I'm in Cincinnati and there is a lot of steel around, but all the scrap yards are buying scrap, not selling pieces to the public. The junkyards seem more suited for car parts and stuff like leaf springs for crafting material. Just looking for ideas as I move towards shaping my first piece of metal. Thanks for any guidance.
January 27, 20233 yr You want it standing on end, so that you have the greatest mass directly under the hammer blow. You can also shape the edges to give you lots of useful working surfaces. Check out this thread:
January 27, 20233 yr Go To The Source If you are looking for rail road steel go to the rail yard or where they work on rail roads. If you are looking for heavy plate steel, go to where they use heavy plate. There are going to be scraps there.
January 27, 20233 yr Author This piece looks tiny compared to the one in that thread. Thanks for the links. I'll just call around. Cincinnati has a lot of railroad and machining industry.
February 3, 20233 yr i put mine on wood. It worked fine till the wood cracked (my fault, was wood that was laying outside for a couple of years after it has been part of my roof for over 70 years, it just rotted from laying outside and than the hammering on it just killed it). But it is easy and cheap if you have scraps around.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.