More rail track

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- ED
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, Nov 21, 2006 11:44 PM

The thread on rail anvil making got me digging around the old iron pile and there I found two different pieces of old track.

One was 1"x2"x2"-- real cute , used in mining no doubt.

The other was 1.75"X3"x3" and was marked IJJ Steel Co, Joliet Works 1890 V No15 Is this stuff any good for anything? The ranch that it came off of has a big building framed with the heavy stuff. Got to be a few hundred feet of it in that building along with I beam and channel. I was going to weld a cattle guard with it..

ED

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- Martin H. Eastburn
  
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posted
17 years ago

Wed, Nov 22, 2006 3:28 AM

Cool -

I'd make a couple of pounding irons at least - a small bench one and a larger one. Sometimes a little iron in the right place helps when the big pounding iron is to heavy to carry there. e.g. out on the range - use it to back stop a post as another pounds in ... or ...

I have several around here and one small one as well as a small bench one that was cast. Different benches have different small ones. The big ones are used to hold down wood (dead weight) when fitting stuff together and generally holding down the ground waiting for their time in the lime light. It always comes. Tractor is in the field ....

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member

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ED wrote:

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- Ignoramus29962
  
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posted
17 years ago

Wed, Nov 22, 2006 3:47 AM

I am sure of that.

Not all work with anvils involves some sort of precision forming of hot metal. Some is just "fixing stuff around the house". Ergo, I will have to straighten a piece of sheet metal this weekend (a cover on a machine that was run over by something) and my little flat anvil will come handy. Your rails will also be somehow similarly useful.

i

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- ED
  
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posted
17 years ago

Wed, Nov 22, 2006 4:08 AM

What type of steel would a 1890 era rail be made of? Would it wrought iron or plain steel. I'm going to demo the big building and salvage the beams for a new shop next summer, it was built in the late

40's, never seen such a mix mash of stuff, railroad iron for the top plate over I beam posts and main door frames are also rail iron those old miners were an interesting bunch, this guy had a degree from mit and the colorado school of mines...

ED