Thread: Anvils?

Alright then!
We all want an anvil.Many of us don't have access to the tools and machinery I had to make my flash u beaut one.Not to worry there are ways and means to do it without some of the gear.one may have to bite the bullet and go to a fab shop for at least one of the processes.

The following is about as basic as I can reduce it to, but you will require the means to cut your plate, a welder and a grinder.It is either that or form a meaningful relationship with a boilemaker or metal fabricator of some sort.

In essence one does not require much more than a flat striking surface and a goodly mass of metal so we are not chasing the bastard over the shop as we strike on it.

A visit to a scrap yard or a welding engineering shop is in order to secure some heavy material. An I- beam off cut cut with thick flanges would be ideal.

I beam on its own may not be rigid enough so the spaces between the top and bottom flanges need to be gusseted.Use some 12mm plates or thicker to do this.

The striking surface can be a 25mm thick flat bar-yes you can get a bit of 25mm thick flat at an engineering shop.

Have it oxy cut to the profile of your choice and weld it it on top of your I beam allowing a smidgin of overhang to place fillet welds on the under sides.


The top surface can now be pad welded with low hydrogen electrodes. Using a low hydrogen electrode weld deposit will give you a very good striking surface as it will work harden over time.

It is also reasonable to machine or grind.
Pad welding is a weld surfacing technique. It involves laying bead after bead of parallel overlapping weld bead. Each bead overlaps the preceding bead by 2/3 rds.
It is a method by which we teach our beginners in the trade.

Don,t forget to drill holes in the bottom flanges to attach it to a stump.

.Now gentlemen start your anvils.

Grahame

Grahame,

That's a great method for building an anvil. I've been meaning to get a round tuit for a while, but have been making do with 18" of railway track my father gave me.

I spoke to a bloke at Gasweld who told me that in the 1960s an anvil was a pound ($2) for a pound (lb)!

Regards,

Richard

Hi Richard,

A railway iron of sufficient weight makes a great anvil. Many are unaware that railway line comes in different weights per meter.Heavy duty rails for instance are used on coal train lines up here in the Bowen basin where as the light ones are used in lower traffic areas.

It is possible to get the old heavy duty line and reweld to build up the worn corners using the low hydrogen electrodes which contain manganese. The corners of the rail wear away on rails that are on a curve or a bend.When they are past regrinding they are replaced.

The advantage with railway iron is that the make up of the metal includes manganese which makes the metal work harden on the outside but still stay flexible enough internally to resist the strains of hundreds of wagons per day running over them.
A bit of a caution here is that if you are going to do this, reweld all of the top surface if you are going to get the surface machined. Bare line will have work hardened to such an extent it may well damage the milling head cutters. I have seen old line hard enough to blunten a centre pop


Below is a pic of a little bench anvil I made out of some very ligh duty tram line (read- railway line for cane trains)

I weighs a couple of kilos

Grahame

Like several of you I used a home made rail iron anvil for a few years, but despite the horn shape it just wasn't up to the job. And the high pitch ringing noise annoyed me and several other people nearby! So I bit the bullet and purchased a real secondhand one, ex-defence force. It cost a packet, $600 to be exact, but I just couldn't find anything else in reasonable condition below that price. I haven't regretted the decision!
There is a crew in SE Qld making anvils, but transport to Vic would be a killer.

Cheers,

Thanks Grahame, this is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping could work. Now of course I have more questions. What sort of a welder is required to weld material like this? I have an old single phase stick welder, could this work? Also, what sort of spacing would you suggest for the gussets? What sort of steel would be best for the top plate?

This site describes quite well the process of building an anvil from heavy plate. It follows many of the same processes Grahame explained but on a larger scale.

Thanks,

Leon.

Hi Aerohydro
Lets begin at the beginning.

What size anvil do you desire?
How long,wide ,high? Just set the specs and we will go from there.

Yes a single phase welder is ok if it will run at least 3.25mm diameter low hydrogen electrodes.Preferably it should have enough grunt to weld 4mm diameter.It will run low hydrogen ok if big enough.

A 7" or 9" angle grinder is also desirable but that could be hired.
Are there engineering shops or a local weld shop close to where you live? Tha may warrant a visit to see what sort of heavy offcuts they have. Mild structural steel is ok for the anvil body.

Grahame

Watson do you have a picture of your anvil ?

A face 300x100mm would be rather nice, height doesn't worry me as long as the thing is fairly stable and returns a reasonable amount of my hammering effort. Is this determined by the type of steel, mass or something else?

If I was to weld a piece of plate or bar to some I beam, would there be an advantage to drilling some holes in the top flange and plug welding (correct term?), or is just going around the edges adequate?

There's an engineering place not too far from me that does large heat exchangers and pressure vessels and that sort of thing, I'll check them out when I get a chance.

Thanks,

Leon.

Quoting an idea from Alex Weyger's book, The Modern Blacksmith, if you're after a heavy, hard lump of iron with a flat surface on which you can hammer, try earthmoving equipment wreckers. They have yards stacked full of odd shaped parts, many with suitable surfaces (round, flat, sharp edged, holes of various shape etc) and made of hard steel. I don't know about cost, but you may get something for scrap iron price?

Cheers

Regarding shaping a bit of rail track, I took mine to a metal shop and for $30 they shaped the horn with oxy. A friend then milled the top flat, inc a step. I finally shaped the horn with grinding wheels etc. Works fine.

A point to note, the steel becomes case hardened from years of pummelling by trains. Don't give up on the shaping cause it gets softer the deeper u go.

Still stumped about cutting a hardy hole tho.

Well here's what I've come up with so far. It leaves plenty to be desired but it's far better than nothing. The next improvement will probably be something to hold hardie tools.

See here for some pictures.

Jeweler's suppliers used to bring in cast iron sockets for holding large stakes used in making tablewear - as far as I know they are still being made. You may also find them at places like Blackwoods in the blacksmithing section.

They were intended to be inlet into the top of a stump or a bench - the top was a disk shape with a square hole & the under side had an extension of the square socket about 3-4" (75-100mm) deep. I've also seen illustrations of them without the disk, and ones intended to go in the hardie hole of a large anvil for small stakes.

hi all,

where to find railroad for anvil?? i live in melbourne area


thanks

Have a look here if you want to do your own anvil. Personally I think it is a bit too much work for the money you can buy a second hand anvil.

I give you that on e-bay people pay way too much but it is a matter of searching until you find your anvil. Small anvil cost $5 to 10 dollars a kilo. Bigger go for a bit less but not too much less. Don't buy new Chinese anvil since they are made out of rubbish and you will make a dent in them with every hammer stroke. If that does not bother you, then you can not buy cheaper.

Old anvil are not necessary all good. Look for good straight edges with no bits missing, an anvil with rounded edges and missing corners will only be good for some limited work. Anvil with a concave surface will need restoring. Unless you are prepared to resurface it and have the welding equipment to do it, forget it.

There is a guy in Newcastle that is making new small anvil (25 kilo I think) that are made the old fashion way. Good stuff but at a price. I think he sells them for $300 a piece. Way too much for such a small toy, conceded a very good toy. Check out e-bay for that one.

I wouldn't buy anything less than 40 Kilos for an anvil to do small jobs, 70 or 80 is better, probably the ideal weight for wrought iron blacksmithing. The big monster 200 kilo and up are nice if you don't have to move them...ever, only necessary to forge very large stuff. Unless you can still swing a 5 kilo hammer with one hand you don't need it.If you really want to forge large stuff make yourself a power hammer and save your back.

Railway line anvils are good to straighten 3 inch nails.

The Hofi anvil is probably the best anvil that you could make yourself