Cleaning up a ASO (Anvil shaped object)

[bwal74]

Hi,

About 18 months or so ago I purchased a ASO (kindly identified by Ueee) from a local market.

For whatever reason is possessing me, I've decided to take it to work and clean up the top of it on the mill. It's a rough cast piece from unknown material. I'll use the biggest carbide insert face mill I can find. I'm hoping to take it in tomorrow and do the deed sometime this week.

I'll have to get permission before doing it. If anyone has any raging doubts let me know.

Cheers Ben.

ps I think I'm going a bit stir crazy, my lathe is in pieces and the garage is full of crap for a upcoming garage sale!!!

[Burner]

Have you checked the hardness of the surface you want to machine. I would be cautious plowing my cutter into it.

[AndrewOC]

"Have you checked the hardness of the surface?" If it is real soft (a true 'ASO'), a belt sander or 9" angle grinder would do just as well.

Check out the Anvilfire website for some other thoughts on edge dressing;
http://www.anvilfire.com/FAQs/ look under "Anvil Radius: Dressing anvil corners, suggested radii" - I would stress the 'amount of radius is a matter of personal taxte' bit.

Recently I worked on a chinese cast ASO and it was difficult, purely because of the unforgiving edges- the weight and rebound were usable.

As an example, my most-used anvil the long edges are conservatively cleaned up with flap disc, and I have kept the heel edge relatively sharp for occasional cutting and setting sharp internal shoulders

regards,
AndrewOC

[bwal74]

Well, finally got the ASO on the mill today.

Its a big Lagun mill from Spain. I've used it several times previously, didn't know me and another bloke at work are the only two people to use it regularly. Which explains why no one knew how to reduce the speed. It has a low and high speed range on the control panel and then a knob on the body that increases/reduces the speed in the range your in.

The photo with the sparks in it is when I was obviously going to fast. Breaking thru the scale was scary and wore the inserts out (probably due to excessive speed - which i rectified).

I thinking of putting on the biggest face cutter we have to do the final finishing cuts, just to make it look better.

Ben

[oohsam]

Wow. That's awesome.

whats the plan with this? Just make a nice flat surface for bashing metal on ?

Or are you going to try and clean the whole thing up.

[bwal74]

Hi,

Finished.

Toyed around with cleaning it up some more but decided it really wasn't worth it. At least now I have something I can mark out small pieces on until i get a medium sized marking out plate.

Took a final cut with a large face cutter (150mm Diam).

Ben.