Making an anvil

Butter · 2007-05-19T21:12:54+00:00

I'm planning on building a propane forge and am wanting an anvil. I'mjust starting in all this and know nothing. Being poor buying a newanvil is out of the question and I'm not wanting to wait till I findone at an auction as that could take forever. My brother suggested I make the basic shape out of a series ofsections I can cut out of 3/16 steel on a CNC plasma cutter I run. Hesaid weld them together and then weld some tool steel to the top. Isthis a practical idea? What about a temp anvil till I find an auctionanvil? Fella at work, a welder, suggested using Nickle(think it was)rod and machine it flat. I have acess to a mill. I can't get back on the internet for maybe a week to answere any ofy'alls comments but I'll check maybe next weekend.Kenny

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Neon John 19 years ago

Ohhhhh, let me tell you about my high school summer job welding up volkswagen heads for a friend of dad's who remanufactured the heads. My job was to stand there and essentially fill up the combustion chamber with aluminum so a new one could be machined from scratch. I had a LARGE water-cooled TIG torch running pure Argon (one of the better UV emitters around). Can't recall the amps but it was a LOT, over

200.

It was June and hot and I showed up the first day in a lightweight Tee-shirt and shorts. Spent 12 hours that day, yes I did, in front of that bench. By the time I was ready to leave from work, I knew I'd fubar'd bad. By bed time I had water under my skin and was in absolute agony. Once the blisters break, the skin dries up and cracks. That's when the REAL pain begins. I was in the hospital for a couple of days with one continuous burn across my chest, arms down to the end of my gloves and my thighs. About another 10 days recovering.

One of the more miserable aspects was that enough UV bounced off my shirt, then off the inside lens of my helmet to sunburn my corneas. Think about someone tossing coarse sand in your eyes but it won't come out for a day or two. I've had lesser cornea burns from UV from dark but smooth shirts.

I now use a leather jacket when it's cool enough or heavy fire retardant canvas Carhardt overalls when I weld. I've screwed a little leather bib to my helmet that guards my throat and my eyes. With my electronic helmet I don't have to flip it up and down very much so I try to keep the bib tucked inside my shirt except when I'm doing something that splatters a lot, such as gouging. I also have leather "gators" that I put around my ankles that overlap my shoes and keep the sparks out.

John

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Prometheus 19 years ago

Ahh yes... this was a similar deal, though I was using a big Miller wirefeed- one of the industrial ones, about the size of an average home forced-air heater. There was about 20 minutes when I was running it on the highest possible setting, to get it done faster, but it was melting the wire inside of the tips, so it got turned back down.

On the bright side- it's not nearly that bad. I'm not terribly prone to sunburn to begin with, but it's good enough to keep me sitting in my chair today. Only one blister- and that's on the knucle of the middle finger of my left hand, where I was using it as a pivot to weave the welder tip back and forth to fill up those 1/2" cutouts. I ground about 1/2" of the swage block this morning (to me, anyhow- to the rest of you, it was probably late afternoon) and it was irritating me badly enough that after about an hour with the angle grinder, I slipped up and let go of it with one hand before the flap disk stopped spinning, and dislocated my thumb and slit it lengthwise with the egde of the disk.

Not a big injury, and easily enough dealt with a good tug on the injured digit and a bit of scrubbing to get the metal grit out- but enough to make me decide to stop working on it this evening in favor of watching movies and drinking (more than I'm accustomed to) beer. Actually, the worst pain of all is sore muscles in my back from hunching over the welding table when filling the plug holes- that's a job I'm not used to, and because I'm a less than masterful welder, sitting down to do it would have been just begging to set myself on fire.

Still works out to a net benefit though- for a professional who earns a handsome living, it may not be worthwhile to bang one's self up to make something like this. But in my case (and a lot of other folks too, I suspect) it's a small price to pay to get a tool that would have otherwise required months (if not years) of careful saving or some strenuous side-job work to aquire.

It *did* explain to me why the welders wear heavy dark blue shirts, while the uniforms for the rest of us are lightweight light blue cotton. No welder's burn on the eyes, though- so far, I've been lucky enough to avoid that particular injury.

Way ahead of you on the footwear front- after 15+ years in metalworking and construction, I don't even check the mail without wearing my 6" cuff steeltoes with my jeans overlapping them. Sad, but true- I spend more on boots every year than I do on all my other clothing combined- except for when I got married, and bought a couple of nice suits.

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Mark Finn 19 years ago

ya john, as a greenhorn welder, been there, done that. i think the greatest pain can come from your eyes. anyway........have fun. mark

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Butter 19 years ago

I meant to say hardfacing rod. I've talked to a couple of welders who suggested that and the blacksmith I am currently taking Sat classes from also said to give this project a try. I'm planning on drilling thru the plates and filling it up with weld. I'm thinking of making it somewhere in the 250 lbs range since anything bigger I'll never be able to move. In the mean time I have a large piece of metal from a disassembled iron worker I'm going to use

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Rob 19 years ago

I have considered a similar project and it seems to me like a good idea would be to arrange the plates vertically so that you are beating on the edge of the plates rather than the face. IOW,

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rather than

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That way, you avoid the problem of voids. FWIW, I resurfaced an anvil with a combination of Lincoln MM and Ranite hardfacing rod. The rod cracks as it cools, but according to the product literature that I read, it is designed to do this. I haven't used it much, but I haven't seen any spalling yet.

FWIW, Rob

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