DocsMachine Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Hello all. Followed a link over from the Home Shop Machinist site, and since I'm starting on a project, I thought I'd hang out a while. I'm in Alaska, and so shipping on heavy items like anvils can easily be equal to the cost of the anvil itself. And, there's a fair number of farriers, do-it-yourselfers and elderly metalbeaters around so that anvils are rarely sold, and when they are, they're bought up instantly and for relatively high prices. I'm looking to build myself a small propane forge, using one of the various designs out there (any recommendations?) and to go with it, I'd need an anvil. I'll just be doing small ornamental stuff, or the usual knives and whatnot, until I either get the hang of it and start thinking of bigger stuff, or I lose interest and go back to combat sportfishing. Now, what I have in mind is this, see attached photo: I had a section of heavy-gauge rail in the scrap pile, just over 20" long. I torched it in half, notched one end and trimmed the base so that the two can sit fairly close together. I then had the machine shop at the college run them through the heat-treating ovens to anneal them. From here, I plan to mill the two mating faces fairly flat (I have a machine shop) and weld them together. Probably with a normal rod like 7018, except for the topmost 3/8" or 1/2" of the gap at the face, which I plan to fill with hardfacing rod. Next, we also annealed a 6" by 3-1/4" roundbar of 4140, which I plan to mill down to a vague horn shape, and weld to the end of the rails. Filling the top of that gap with hardfacing as well, and probably with a decent gusset underneath made out of plain mild steel. I'll then "cap" the gaps between the rail web with plate welded in place. The whole mess will likely be just over 100 lb when done, and giving me a 6" x 10" top face and 5" long horn. That plan at this point is to anneal it again, to both soften the hardfacing rod, and relieve some of the welding stresses. I'll then flycut the top faces to dead-flat, and do a little cosmetic grinding and polishing here and there. Any questions or comments at this point? The last part I think will be a bit of a problem- I need to reharden the face, but the college's (electric) heat-treating ovens aren't suitable for spot heating, or heating and then allowing a quench of something this large. (In other words, I don't know how we'd get a 100-lb block of red-hot steel out of the tiny front-loading oven and into a quenching bath. Besides the fact quenching it in oil is right out- no proper ventilation, massive fire hazard and the ovens are right next to the teach's office.) Any suggestions? Doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irnsrgn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Hardfacing rod will show up as a bright streak down the center of the anvil face and have underbead cracking and peel off if over one layer thick, weld the top joint with 10018, full penetration weld and then use a hardfacing underlay rod for the last 1/2 inch or so, weld the bottom joint with 7018. Weld the horn on with 10018. Check with resturants or fast food resturants for used deep fat frying oil to quench in. Cut the top out of 55 gal steel drum and then cut the top two thirds off the barrel, put the oil in the bottom third of the drum as a quench tank. Cut four or five 1 1/2 inch slots about 6 inches tall around the cut end of the top piece. then place your anvil up on a couple of fire bricks on a dirt base and place the top portion over the anvil. Throw in some scrap wood and start it on fire. Keep feeding the fire till the anvil glows a nice red. Then remove the barrel from the anvil, insert a long pipe or rod thru the center void in the anvil and set the rod on the top of oil resevoir with the anvil top down and let it alone till it cools, There will be a lot of fire at first and for awhile till it cools some so be prepared for it, hence the long rod. Do your machining before heating and you might consider machining half of a square hole toward the heel of each piece so they match up prior to welding for a hardy hole. This should give you a suffiently hard top to work enough top to work hot iron on. Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meco3hp Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Doc, If Jr(Irnsrgn) says it'll work, don't hesitate no mater how weird it might sound to you! Jr is a master in my opinion. Check out his Blueprints on anvil repair, in the blueprint section. Your on the right track! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Don, welcome to the forum. Go to http://www.iforgeiron.com/BPindex/BPindex.shtml and look over some of the "Blueprints" the how to projects, tools, and jigs. As you construct your anvil, take photos of the process and we can work them up into a blueprint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 I think a big block of steel would make a better anvil but if you are stuck with RR track, then Jr's comments are spot on. However, water will do a better job quenching as the mass is too great to harden properly in oil. I have repaired and rehardened several conventional anvils and can affirm that a large amount of water in a cascading column is needed to remove the heat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irnsrgn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 I have rehardened several anvils that have gone thru fires, and I prefer water too, just not sure what the 4140 will do in a water quench. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallsme Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocsMachine Posted March 4, 2006 Author Share Posted March 4, 2006 I was wondering about using the 4140. I went with that simply because the shop has stacks of it. What would be a better choice for the horn, then? My first idea was just to go with mild steel and hardface it with the welding rod, but as mentioned above, I'd heard it tended to crack or peel if you tried to build it up to any appreciable depth. Doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irnsrgn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Best thing would be Stress Proof Round, just machine to a taper and then cut to fit, very few anvils have a hard face on the horn, just plain ole wrought iron. You won't have to worry about the horn cracking or breaking off if you use stress proof or even cold rolled. Water will give you a harder face than oil will and No nasty flash or flames, but watch out for steam, when I reharden the face of an anvil I use a thin board or a piece of flat in the water to keep the water circulating to better cool the anvil. Most anvils are hardened under running or falling water, but the ones I have done in slack tub harden well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallsme Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 i would recomended 4340 and heat it up only with the tourch and than let it cool down with kompressed air blown to it. i would guess it will be about 50hrc. Another steel you could use is 1045, this is a steel with 0,5% carbon and you can chill it in water and the sarface been pretty hard. about 55hrc. Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 You may want to weld a plate of steel to the each end of the anvil to both close off the interior but also strengthen the anvil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 You could probably poor lead into the center of the anvil if you seal off the space under the horn. THe extra weight would make the anvil more eficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksb Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 Hi Doc .. I made my 1st anvil from 2 pc of rr iron. Did like you - welded the 2 side by each. Then Welded 2 pc of grader blade together and welded it to the top of the rr iron. put in 1" hardie hole. Didn't HT. It ain't the best in the world but it workes fairly well as is. Got a small Nash also. Try to do a bit of blade work and wind up using the rr anvil for that. Here are some links to pic of it. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocsMachine Posted March 5, 2006 Author Share Posted March 5, 2006 Glenn- That's the plan, to plate between the rail ribs to help tie everything together. Bjorn- I was thinking about that. Well, actually first I was thinking grout, mortar or cement, but I suspected it'd eventually be beat to dust. I do have some scrap lead... I'd guess given the volume in there, it'd add an easy 40lb in lead, pushing the finished weight to 150+ lb. Would it help any? Would it do anything except maybe dampen the ring a bit? I will have to carry this thing around on occasion. KSB- That's not awful. Looks pretty sturdy, actually. (Interesting stand, too...) I used to have some grader blade floating around, not sure where it all went. It was serrated though, like a comb- I wouldn't have gotten much usable width out of it. irnsrgn- I've heard the name 'stress proof', what's the alloy? I know both the metal supplier and the college shop have chunks of various alloys, though most of it is "mystery metal"- scrap from the local industrial plants. Might be some great stuff, might be some exotic alloy that takes special welding and tempering techniques else it shatters. (Don't ask me how I know that.) Mild I can get by the ton, but I was thinking something that could be at least a bit harder than that. Doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksb Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 Doc - 'bout the anvil stand - I used what I had at the time. I have learned to work around it but am gona build one like on the other anvil (one day ..... maybe ). Also anvil weight is 98 lb. ksb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 I'm not dissing your idea of using railroad track but if you can get tons of mild steel, buy a square block and weld a piece of scrap spring steel the the top. As stated elsewhere, the main problem with a railroad track anvil in the lack of mass directly under the hammer's blows. It will work but not as well as a more solid design. I have also seen some good designs based on a round shaft set on end - a piece of 6" round, 24" long will weigh close to 200 lbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolano Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 Doc, the lead is a good idea, in my opinion, as you will want that extra weight. After blacksmithing for a few months, carrying around 150#'s wont be much of a problem. my 80# fisher used to cause me a few problems, but now I can carry it with relative ease. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 If the bodies of many brands anvils are made from wrought with a tool steel face, why would you have to harden anything other than the face on your RR track anvil? I can not see lead adding anything to the anvil capibilities. Lead is not one of the things you would want get loose in your shop, either being spilled during pouring, or being vibrated out from between the anvil rails with each impact of the hammer. This construction project is an assembly of materials to approach the solid mass of a real anvil. Considering the actual area of the anvil being used is about the side of your hand, and the ideal location for the mass of the anvil would be under the impact area, why not look for some round shafting in the 4" to 6" size. Consider a set of Rail Road wheels and axle. Cut off one wheel. Bury the other wheel into the ground leaving the axle sticking straight up as the anvil. Just do not walk into it in the dark. :shock: A block of steel 12" x 12" x 4" thick is 163 pounds. That is 4 anvil faces of 4" x 12" and two more anvil faces at 12" x 12 " in size. Mild steel will show some wear but by the time you wear out the 6 anvil faces on the block of steel, it will be time to move up to a real anvil anyway. This is not to rain on your assembled anvil project, just that there are many ways to skin a cat. We also need to rethink the design of the anvil. Do not weld the ends closed like I suggested earlier. Instead, lay the welding rod down and back up 3 paces. Now "look" at this and "see" if you can find a bridge anvil. :idea: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocsMachine Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 When I said I can get tons of mild, I didn't say it was free. Sure, if I wanted to pay for it, the college has some old 1,000-hp electric motor shafts roughly 12" in diameter. They don't know exactly what the alloy is, but they've been tested at 48 to 50 Rockwell C, and I'd bet they're extremely tough for their apparent hardness. But between cutting of a chunk, facing it and paying for it, I think it'd be cheaper to buy a real anvil. The benefit to this rail anvil is that it'll be largely free. As I said, I'm fairly new at this. I've used a gas forge once or twice before, and I've been beating on metal since I could hold a hammer, but really, it's the beginnings of a minor hobby at the moment. If the rail anvil works until I decide whether or not it'll be worthwhile to buy a "real" anvil, that'll be fine. But I still want to do it "right". Doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rthibeau Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Can you get a piece of steel plate to fit the top of the rail pieces and weld that on? You'll be using only a hand hammer on it and if the plate is thick enough, it will suffice. Thick wall pipe in a vise will replace an anvil horn for the time being. A piece of 1 1/2" round forged or machined or even ground done to a cone and in a vice will replace the tip of the horn for that function. "Doing it right" is a function of money, time, and your imagination. If it works for what you want to do with it, you did it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolano Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Glenn, unless Im sadly mistaken, the cavity that the lead would be poured into will be sealed off. But, if you can find a large rosebud torch, and heat it where you have direct access to a large amount of flowing water(Like several garden hoses, ready to be applied, or perhaps a river), you should be able to harden it alright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted March 11, 2006 Share Posted March 11, 2006 Please post the following: Please let DocsMachine know to check out http://www.metalwebnews.com/bs.html and click on "Picture instructions for making a 275lb. anvil". Hillbillysmith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocsMachine Posted March 11, 2006 Author Share Posted March 11, 2006 That's a great read, thanks. Looks like he made a really nice anvil. But as there are no scrapyards around here, and no shop I know of with CNC or even just a motorized patternfollower torch, it's kind of moot. Were I to order the plate commercially, I might as well just order the anvil itself and save myself about $300. He's got some great points on using the hardfacing through. Doc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillbillysmith Posted March 12, 2006 Share Posted March 12, 2006 Doc, just weld the two rails together and weld a 1 inch flat plate to the top, weld on a horn, and if you need more weight, fill in between the webbing of the rails with lead. just be sure to take a torch to the inside just enough to get rid of the miosture before you pour the lead inside or you will have one hot, splashing, burning mess. Be carefull, especially with lead. Hillbillysmith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce wilcock Posted March 12, 2006 Share Posted March 12, 2006 unless you have set your heart on using rail steel, a pice of heavy steel from say the oil industry scrap will win hands down,i have made shoes and shod horses using a big shackel it dsnt have to look like a anvil,it becombes a anvil when you use it as one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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