Drilling a pritchel hole in a old anvil

Curt, a carbide drill wil not care much about metal hardness. However, it will require a rigid machine. You are on the right track buying the carbide drill, though much cheaper alternatives are available on ebay, esp. carbide tipped drills. I would say on ebay a good 1/2" drill can be had for about $15, including shipping. I have a few of such drills. They are invaluable when drilling tough stuff like bearing balls, which I had to do recently.

Just keep them cool enough.

i

I'll second that, Iggy - I've often used masonry-type caarbide-tipped bits on hardened/tempered steel (usually store-bought knife blades) with good results.

While not the most accurately sized, they'll do for pilot holes and other non-dimensionally-critical purposes.

Funny you should ask. I just this minute came in from the shop where I just finished facing my first railroad track anvil. And then, I drilled the pritchel hole. No trouble with that, though. But I do have trouble drilling the track where I have torch cut it. Next time I will spot anneal those araas. Good thing I have my trusty Drill Doctor!

I wonder if it could be done with a cnc plasma or cnc water jet. I know they will both cut the material, but I don't know how deep they can go. And you may have to go an inch or so. I know guys who would cut that hole with an oxyacetylene cutting torch and do a pretty good job, but you'd still want to clean the hole up with a carbide burr. ---It would be fast and cheap, tho. Also, what about finding a shop that does EDM? They could eat out that hole for you pretty acurately. I don't know cost. Of course, if you do anything to that Mouse Hole anvil, several people will probably hate you for the rest of your life.

Pete Stanaitis

Curt Welch wrote:

On 28 Sep 2009 19:29:39 GMT in alt.crafts.blacksmithing, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote,

EDM. Find somebody with a sinker EDM or even just a tap-buster.

Plasma would require massive current to go say the 1 1/2" thickness Cole drill with a carbide drill -

You would likely have to drill a hole through for the plasma or water jet to start > Funny you should ask. I just this minute came in from the shop where I

Yep - and drill a hole through the carbide drill as well :-)

Mart> On 28 Sep 2009 19:29:39 GMT in alt.crafts.blacksmithing, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com

There are carbide tipped drills for metal, I was referring to those kinds, not masonry drills.

Example is here.

ebay has plenty of those if you look deep

i

My drill press is not what you would call rigid. :) I'll have to see how it does (will probably break the bit!)

That's why I should post questions before placing my orders. :)

I probably already have some carbide tipped masonry bits large enough. I just assumed their design wouldn't work on steel - didn't even think to try them.

My pritchel hole is certainly not critical. If it looks more round than square, that's good enough for me and better than no hole. I'll have to experiment with some of my masonry bits first just to see what happens.

The heel on this anvil is very short and gets thick fast. The deep end of the hole will be about 2". I could push it closer to the end and keep it to about 1 1/2" deep.

I've got long carbide burrs to do just that. But no skilled O/A guys I could trust.

Yeah, might be high. I have no clue what they would charge. It just seems like a high end machine that would come with high end rates.

Too late. :) Yeah, when I first started to work on it, it was sort of a coin toss as to whether to put it on the shelf as a museum piece or to work on it and make it usable again. I got it for $100 and knew nothing about it's history. It looked like someone had given up on it as an anvil and started to use it for chipping ice with a pick axe. Or maybe even breaking rocks? The face was bowed down about 1/2" in the middle and there wasn't a single flat spot or even semi-sharp edge on it. The whole anvil had been painted black to hide just how bad the face was. It wasn't usable for hitting hot metal unless the goal was to add a unique texture to your metal.

The markings are hard to read, but it's marked M&H ARMITAGE MOUSE HOLE which according to this post:

Puts it at 1820 to 1835. Other resources indicate that the pritchel hole showed up around 1830 so mine's somewhere in the 1820 to 1830 age if all that is correct.

When I bought it, I though it was just a crappy old cheap anvil that needed a lot of work. But when I figured out what it was, and how old it was, I really didn't know whether to save it, or try to use it. I opted for fixing it. I've already put about 7 layers of beads, first to get it flat again, and then the last two for the medium hardfacing (HRC 45 range). The plan is to put 2 more layers of HRC 55 hardfacing to finish it off.

When I started, the plan was not to add the pritchel hole because the missing hole was part of its heritage. But I've changed my mind at this point and decided I really want the pritchel hole if I can make it happen affordably. So I'm waiting on the last two layers of hardfacing until I figure out what I'm doing with the pritchel hole.

Thermite :-)

Or simply pay someone else to do it :-)

Regards Charles

Curt Welch wrote:

Curt, I was not referring to carbide tipped masonry bits, but instead, to carbide tipped drill bits for metal. They are made from steel, with carbide tips on the ends. They are probably less fragile.

Igor

Yeah, I know you were. I was not confused about that. I've looked though the selection on eBay as well and almost ordered some but decided I need to wait for the bit I already ordered to show up and do more experimenting first.

Thanks for the ideas.

Your comment:

The face was bowed down about 1/2" in the middle and there wasn't a

might be a clue to how to do it. I have seen a number of old anvils whose faces were soft enough to be deformed by hammering and that sounds like one of them. Maybe means that it would be easier to drill after the first 1/16" or so.

Pete Stanaitis

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0

snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0= =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 If you talk with someone at a welding supply place, you might be able to get either supplies for an oxygen lance or rods for thermite cutting. Those should go through just about anything and also be relatively controlled. You could also find someone familiar with those techniques. If you're doing all of this restoration work to your anvil, I'm sure that filling in a pritchel hole shouldn't be a big problem if you decide to reverse the work you've done.

Good point Pete. It might not be as bad as I've feared. I didn't try drilling the face before I covered it up. It seemed fairly hard testing it with a file however. The only thing I've tried to drill so far is the top layer of HRC 45 range hardfacing I added to it. But with the amount of dings in the face, maybe it really wasn't all that hard!

Since we are talking about it, I just uploaded some pictures of the anvil and the work I'm doing on it and the stand I made as well as a few other projects.

More good ideas to keep in mind.

Well, if I get carried away and melt the thing down to a bubbling blob of goo that dripped though the hole in my workbench in a thermite accident, it might be more than just "filling the mistake in". :) But yet, I'm not too worried about drilling partial holes in the face because it would be easy compared to everything else to just fill that back in again if I decide to give up on the pritchel hole.

Iggy, in this area we've learned to "make do" a very, very long time ago.

The masonry drills are: 1. cheap 2. available at 24-hour Wal*Marts 3. Cheap 4. available at lumber yards 5. CHEAP

Did I mention "cheap"?

>

I am not sure if you mentioned cheap, but the masonry drills that I saw, were sharpened in a way that would make it difficult to drill steel. At the very least, you would need to resharpen them.

i

Expanding on this, bu the time you've figured out how to do it and risked doing nasty things to the anvil, a machinist could have done it for you.

For me time is money, and I've had to learn that sometimes it's cheaper to let someone else do the job for me.

Regards Charles