Railroad track as an anvil? (Ig)

Whereas you can just pick 'em up.

D

I wonder what would end up the cheapest way to slice up railroad track into manageable/usable pieces in the long run?

A. Bandsaw Blades, one or more per cut B. Oxygen and Acetylene and a big freaking cutting torch C. Cold Saw, and hauling a generator out there to run it D. Abrasive chop saw, and camping supplies for a three day stay or E. Shaped Charges, one pair per rail cut (or other "High Energy" solutions.)

If it wasn't for all the permits, and the noise that would draw attention, I'd call in the heavy artillery.

All over and done with in a few milliseconds, neat and clean - "Here, Bubba: Hold my beer and watch this - !!Fire In The Hole!!"

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Bruce L. Bergman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Why bother with Acetyline?

has the answer, especially for thick stuff.

Any idea what it runs? The pricing is notably absent on their site, not even an MSRP that they can discount from.

Rolls Royce has the same attitude - "If you have to ask..."

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On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:20:43 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Bruce L. Bergman quickly quoth:

I hate that, but Google usually saves the day.

$1,700 I guess that you pay THEM your cost savings (over the life of the tool) instead of Airgas.

Pass.

Talk to an old railway man. Cut rail with a hammer and chisel. Real cheap!

I'll tell you the easiest way is a 16" abrasive chop saw. Because that is the way the crew was doing it at the site I was photographing. It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to cut a 136 # rail. The crew that was doing the welding was using a hydraulic driven on but the other crew was using a "weed wacker" engine driven one. There was a very simple fixture which clamped to the rail to keep it perpendicular and "Away we go" . :-) Nice clean flat cut. ...lew...

Well, depending what you do, a foot or two would be useful. Have you ever been working and thought you needed an anvil? I think if you do more hand-tool type stuff, then you would find an anvil useful. If you do more machine tool stuff, especially the typical "lathe and mill" type machining.

Personally, I wouldn't pay more than $20 or so for a length of rail unless I had a specific need for it. If you really needed an anvil, a cheap way to start is the Harbor Freight 110 pound "Russian" anvil. It's a good anvil for the money. I don't think they sell them online, but they usually have them at the stores.

Railroad makes a good small anvil, if you need a jewler's anvil or something like that, and you can do a lot of good work on it if you're motivated. Heavy rail is not perfect, but you can do just as good work on a length of rail as anything else. Rail is also nice because you can cut it up to make shapes that you wouldn't get with a regular anvil (e.g, a saddle shape for doing heavy sheet work).