Annealing a rail

Sep 25, 2006 6 Replies
I

I have a piece of railroad rail that I may use for making a little homemade anvil (just a fun project with scrap materials such as that rail and 4140 bars). That rail is a light gauge rail, maybe from a tram line or a factory railroad, I am not sure.



To weld on a 4140 bar, I suppose, it is best to flatten the rail's top.



Since it may be work hardened (I suppose I could check that with a regular file), I suppose that it would be wise to anneal it, by, say, putting it in a decent wood fire and then, once it gets hot, into sand such as that on my kids' playground.



i
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S

I would have sent this to you off-list, but it appears from your address that it wouldn't get to you and I couldn't figure out how to decode it, so:

Where abouts do you live?

S> I have a piece of railroad rail that I may use for making a little

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I

25 miles west of Chicago, IL. I do not mind receiving mail, as such, but I try to spamproof my address. I receive mail at ichudov AT algebra DOT com.

Sounds interesting and I will look for one, though I have not seen one yet.

i
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Plenty of blacksmiths with extra stuff in that area. I would contact UMBA or IVBA. They both have newsletters and they are usually allowing classified ads.

Upper Midwest Blacksmith Association:

Ed: Steve White PO Box 507 Killduff, IA 50137 (641) 798-4501 snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

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Illinois Valley Blacksmith Association:

Ed: John R. Lovin

21735 E. Bakerville Road Belle Rive, IL 62810 (618) 756-2331 snipped-for-privacy@hamiltoncom.net

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---------------------------------- The above info for the US and Canada can be found at abana.org.

I was born and raised in Rockford, Il. Now live about 40 miles east of St. Paul, Mn.

Pete Stanaitis

Ignoramus5425 wrote:

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Hey Iggy, found this too:

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out the bladesmiths home made anvil. (thats page 2 on the alexbealer site if the link don't work)

Rusty_ir

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Rusty, that's a great page.

What do you think about buying this Russian anvil, and hardfacing it with a hardfacing rod. I have 20 lbs of Cobalarc 9 hardfacing rod (well, will get it in a day or two) that I got for not too much. It is a very tough rod with a lot of chrome content, with hardness of 60-62 RC, used on crushers, tampers, big teeth etc. I spoke with its manufacturer, they say that it should work in an anvil, but I wanted to double check.

It would not be terribly hard to grind it, I have a variety of grinders, 4.5", 7", and a 3 HP 3 phase behcn grinder that could be somehow adapted t grinding an anvil.

i
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