Alrighty....finely got me a nice Peter Wright. About 97 pounds. The chip on the one side is pretty bad and i was wondering what you guys think about repairing it. Any ideas? Thank you in advance for any help.

okay lets try again....

If the other side is in good shape, you may want to simply grind the chipped area into a very large smooth radius to use as a bottom fuller for heavy drawing. Welding is OK but typically a lot more work and the results are not always as predictable. Another option is just leave it alone and use the rest of the anvil. There are plenty of areas left for forging.

Yeah, the other side of the anvil is in great condition. I think ill go ahead and stick to just grinding it, welding was an option but truthfully has me a little worried hearing all the horror stories about losing the hardness on the rest of the face and cracks rippling through the plate. Not really what i want to have happen after spending almost ever dollar i had on it. Thank ya sir..

Why not use the anvil for a year just the way it is. Try to figure out how you can use the chip to your advantage. Then you will have an idea if it really bothers you enough to risk repairing the anvil.

Me, I just work with the horn on my right... wouldn't bother me a bit. Usually.

There is no problem to weld this anvil.
just heat it upp to about 250 degrees celsius before welding.
Use a toolsteel electrode to make the welding.
After the finished welding, put it in some insulating fiber to make it
cold down wery slowly.
Than its only the grinding left.
You must be over 550degrees celsius to lose the hardening of the anvil.
So keep on welding.

Roger

Rebuilding that anvil is not a problem once you get over all the misinformation out there.

step by step instuctions with pictures in blueprint BP0101

Thank you!!! everyone!! That blueprint will help a lot...geuss i should of looked a little harder :oops: When it gets here tomorrow ill take a little closer look at the chip and report back here with some more in depth pictures. The fabrication shop my father works in hopefully wont care if we do decide to weld it. anyone know of any welding supply houses around sidney, ohio??

I cant say on the welders supplies, but thats going to be one heck of a welding job. make sure you crank up the amps, and use large rods or wire. Oh, and you might consider using hardfacing rods/wire.

Nolano, just the opposite is needed, 1/8 rod maximum, big rods and big heat equals one useless anvil, takes time to do an anvil right and not get too much heat into it.

And hardfacing rods are to hard and brittle and do not give a color match, they will ruin a perfectly good anvil cause the repair stands out like a sore thumb.

And the main part of the Anvil is Wrought iron, wire feed is not an option in this case.

I didnt mean he needed a big heat, but in my experience, you cant weld large stuff unless you crank up the amps. However, I have never done any arc welding, only Mig and TIG, so I might be wrong.

A few years ago, my blacksmithing group did a anvil repair meeting. Everybody took in their beat up anvils we spent the hole day fixing them.
Now I dont quite remember all the details of what they did, but I know they first put all the anvils into this small furness they made, it was just a bunch of fire bricks piled around the anvils with a couple of weed burner torches stuck inside.
And once they got hot( i cant remember how hot they got them, probably about 250c).
The anvils were then welded with MIG and ARC welders using A2 air hardening for the filler steel.
Then they were finished with angle grinders.

It all didn't look that hard. There were about 12 guys working, and we fixed probably about 10 anvils.

-Andrei

550C is WAY TOO HIGH for an old simple steel faced anvil. That's almost glowing in a dark room hot---it will lose it's temper hundreds of degreesF lower than that!

I would not want it to go over 350-400 degF myself.

Thomas

A friend uses "super missle rod" to repair preheated (300-400Deg. F) anvils. Followed by a very slow cool down. Works great for him

LOL, super missle weld or rod, save the big dollars and go by some 309 stainless rod, its the same thing.

Them rod salesmen sell it to farmers around here telling them it will weld anything, they try it don't hold, then the fun begins removing the stuff so you can do it right.

Sorry if I offended you with my info on the missle rod Jr.. The anvil that I worked on for two days had been repaired as I said and it was great. Made me wish I han not traded it to him in the first place. :oops:

you didn't offend me, I am just old school and only use stainless to weld stainless. LOL

I dont know nearly enough about welding to belabour the point. I was simply trying to pass on what I had seen done & worked with,. Didnt see what was so funny (LOL).

Just laughing at myself Brian, I get very opinionated at times, read hardheaded. If you can't laugh at yourself, you shouldn't laugh at others or with them. And I am not faulting you just commenting on your observations.

My opinion is that the anvil is fine the way it is. Plenty of flat spots. I dont like Anvils with sharp edges because they tend to leave sharp imprints in your work. If I need a sharp edge, I use a block of steel that is lying around. Also, think about the surface area of the face of your hammer. If your hammer face is two inches square then you arent going to need much more flat working area on the face of your anvil. When I first started smithing I thought that a brand new 300lb anvil would be the way to go. Now I am glad I didnt spend the money because now I think my 140lb anvil with chips is just fine. But, if you think this anvil would be fun to refurbish then................

Thank you everyone soo much... Ive come to a desicion to just keep the anvil the way it is. Ill work on it for about a year before i make a final decision. But right now its just gonna stay a little dammaged...when i finally got it home the chunk missing looked a lot smaller then in the pictures. So i think its gonna be fine. Agin thank you everyone for all your help..tho i have one more question. Does anyone have a good idea for a stand that would help reduce the ring of this thing. Ive heard of caulking the area the anvil sits in, magnets, chaining it down..etc...any one have any expirience of if any of these work or not..Thank you again.

My anvil can be heard at 4 blocks during the heat of the summer (with thin less dense air to carry the sound). The same anvil can be used at 2 am if I am careful. Always be mindful of the neighbors and their sleeping habits.

Try a couple of wraps of loose chain about the waist, a carriage bolt in the pritchel hole (carriage bolt with the low profile round head so you do not injure yourself), loosely strap the feet down, bed the anvil in silicone, the magnet never did much for me, but you can try one under the heel or the horn, and there is a BP on a device to kill the ring in the process of rolling down to dot.com. All these will help.

One of the things I noticed was the position of the hot metal on the anvil, directly over the body mass rings less than on the heel or horn.

When all else fails, those little foam ear plugs, AND a set of good ear muffs make the ring of the anvil disappear. :wink: