How to "fix" a turd anvil

[OverkillYJ]

Turd anvil is the nice way to put it.

So I picked up for $50 a 55lb cast anvil. I have broken two vices already, one of them a fairly nice one that pissed me off. That happened yesterday. So today I ran out for this piece of ****. I knew what I was buying from the start, but I have a good amount of thick steel on hand.

Its not for knife forging or anything crazy. I hit it with a ball peen and it mars with just a tap. That soft cast ****. I need it for hammering on auto parts I remanufacture in my spare time. Basically heavy **** rusted together that would normally go to scrap, I make like new for older vehicles. I have torches and everything I use to break rust, chem baths, but sometimes we all know it just needs a BFH to get things to separate which is what has screwed up two of my vices.

So I was thinking of taking a 3/8 or 1/2 piece of Steel and welding it to the top. I have welded cast before with success. I figured i could cut the steel shape for the face out with my plasma cutter, drill some holes for deep welds into the existing face, then heat and quench my new face after cutting it before welding it on. I have everything on hand to do it for free, just not sure it is the best approach. I was thinking on the anvil itself I may want to drill down where I put the holes for welding the face on so when I fill it with metal it anchors in properly. Maybe like 3/4" deep holes with 7/16 bolts tapped in so the welds can anchor in nicely.

I have been anvil shopping on Craigslist for a year now. Bottom line is, I cant find what I need. Someone beats me to every good deal that pops up. At minumum I cant find anything I would actually spend the money on for under $500. I have too many other things on my list before a proper anvil. I do not have a forge to start. Any hot work I do is just oxy acetylene using a couple large tanks I have. I dont need to be able to hit that stuff on this, but I would like to be able to if I did for some odd job.

I also have quite a bit of 1/8" and 3/16" mild steel plate laying around. I was not sure if layering a steel base to weld the new face to may be the longest lasting option.

If anyone has tried this, let me know how it worked out for you please. Like I said, for what I need, it will do perfectly fine the way it sits. I would like a decent face though that doesnt marr with every tap if I can.

Also, I would be MIG welding this with a Millermatic 211, 75/25 mig mix gas, and er70s-6. In the past, when pre heating and cooling cast welds, I found my 200k BTU torpedo heater does the job quite well. For cooling I just slowly pull it further away and have never had any problems with cracking.

I figure this would take me a couple hours, and be nice if it comes out solid. The metal I have is scrap otherwise. I know it is no replacement for the real deal, but if it gets me by for a year I am happy. I really was not 100% sure if I should harden the steel or not either if I do go forward with this.

 

[OverkillYJ]

Sorry, forgot to include a pic of my new turd.

 

[rlitman]

You have an ASO.
If you're just looking for something heavy to support a good piece of steel plate, why not cut out your piece of 1/2" steel, and epoxy it to the ASO? I think you'll have the same or better results than welding it.

 

[EdT]

I have considered the same thing, but I've not tried it yet. For my work, I just need a nice hard, flat place to hammer on. I think a key feature would be for the steel plate to be in contact with the top of the anvil all over. Otherwise, there will be "springy" places where the steel plate does not contact. Might not be a big problem, but it wouldn't be ideal. I think with welding, especially something that heavy, it might be difficult to get things nice and tight and once the weld cools, whatever you have is what you're stuck with. The approach I was going to try was to get both pieces as flat as possible and tin both surfaces and sweat them together in an oven. I'd also planned to put some FH screws in to bolt every thing together. Possibly weld them up and grind flush after the fact. I suppose you could use JB weld or something like that in lieu of the solder. If you're going to do it, I'd go with some thicker plate like 1/2 or 3/4". If you access to a mill, that would be a good way to get the anvil flat. If you are using CRS for the plate, watch out with machining only one surface flat. It will relieve a lot of internal stresses and turn it into a potato chip. Probably best to get it fastened onto the vise and then take a clean-up cut on the top.

 

[MoonRise]

Is that the HF 50 lb ASO?

http://www.harborfreight.com/55-lb-rugged-cast-iron-anvil-69161.html

Topping the soft cast ferrous-type ASO with some mild steel plate will make it 'better' for hammering on (mildly), but mild steel typically does not have enough carbon (or other alloying elements) in it to respond to quench-hardening.

Not really worth the time and effort and materials to even bother trying to heat and quench some mild steel. Nothing positive really happens to the steel. It gets hot when you heat it and then gets back to 'cool' when you quench it and cool it, but it still remains just some mild steel when all is done. Not really any 'stronger' or harder than the steel you started with (ignoring any possible steel mill rolling effects like on cold-rolled steel, etc).

For typical heat and quench to work on steel, you need to get the carbon up to approximately 0.30%-0.40% (aka 4130 or 4340 type alloys) for the quench to really have an effect on increasing the strength and hardness of the steel.

Moving up even further in strength and hardness from the 4130/4340 type alloys would possible be some AR plate (AR or Hardox, etc).

Adding a 1" thick top plate/layer to the 'top' of the HF ASO (listed as having an 8-3/4" x 4-1/8" 'work surface') would add ~10 lbs of steel to the weight of the 'anvil', some 1/2" thick plate would add ~ 5 lbs of steel.

But trying to 'top' the ASO with some plate on the work surface runs into the issue (that you and others have identified) of 'securely' attaching said plate to the ASO. Not really a trivial matter if trying to get the work surface to be 'solid' all the way across for any sort of semi-serious BFH work. Welding to cast iron is not so simple or easy.

A MM211 with C25 gas is a nice machine for short-circuit transfer GMAW on 'thin' steel. But not what I would reach for or use if trying to weld a 55 lb chunk of cast ferrous to some 'thick' plate.

Just not the right amount of "energy" to usually get anywhere near enough fusion with things that thick. IMNSHO.

Some options would be to :

- try and epoxy some plate (thicker=better) on the ASO work surface. The epoxy may or may not hold up to BFH impacts. General advantage though is that you are not attempting to weld to cast mystery ferrous metal. And if your top plate is some sort of AR plate, you might actually get some semi-decent anvil 'response' from the harder-than-mild-steel AR top plate. And the AR shouldn't instant-dent as much from hammer blows that hit the new work surface.

- welding to the cast mystery ferrous ASO is iffy (IMHO). Especially with a short-circuit transfer wire-feed welder with C25 and solid wire GMAW (no matter how nice the MM211 is).

If dead set on welding to the cast ASO, I'd sort of lean towards using SMAW with a multi-layer pad-build-up approach (a layer or two of a nickel cast-iron welding rod, followed with multiple build-up layers of maybe something like 7018, and finally topped of with some layers of a hardfacing-type of filler).

SMAW doesn't really have the same workpiece thickness 'limits' that short-circuit transfer mode GMAW does.

The drawbacks there are that you didn't indicate you have a stick welding machine or stick welding experience, the nickel rods are $$$$ (rather needed to weld onto the mystery cast ferrous ASO as an initial "buttering" layer), the 7018 layers are not much of an issue, and then the specific hard facing layer rods are usually $$$ to $$$$$. And then you have to have some experience and skill in doing pad build-up welds, and then finally machining or dressing up/off the final top face of all that weld build up to get a mostly smooth and flat 'anvil' top surface.

Just epoxying some relatively thick and 'hard' plate onto the top of the HF ASO is looking a bit better to me from a time and money approach.

 

[BD1]

IF you do lots of pounding when item is in vise , look for a post vice. Those are awesome !!

 

[Greyhorse]

If all you need is a flat surface why not cut a piece of plate that extends over the edge of the anvil and weld some ears on it that are tapped for some bolts to clamp it on to the anvil's sides.

 

[OverkillYJ]

I know what I got. Its a 56lb turd.

The plate I have I could weld to it is flat. I was actually going to flip the anvil onto it and trace it on the flattest part, than cut out the steel before prepping it for welding. The biggest concern of mine was breaking the plate loose from the anvil later on and having a screwed up surface. Thinking another year from now.

I have been offered cheap deals on some cool homemade anvils well over 100lbs. I have been around these quite a bit, I just never hammered steel so often I needed one.

One thing I would not do though is epoxy or JBWeld an anvil face on.

I will beat on this, then when it looks like ****, if I do not have a nice anvil I will reface it. Lucky me, I have many anvil resellers around me when I want to go drop the cash. I am just not putting time, cash, or money into this. Even the $15 epoxy is more than this thing is worth as far as I am concerned. But at least that means I can beat the living **** out of it.

If I was going to forge anything, it wouldnt be on this. This is for bending, and breaking things free with big *** hammers. Even with a plate on top

 

[RivennHewn]

you obviously don't care much for your anvil, and you're just going to beat **** on it, so why care if it gets marred?

Beat the **** out of it, and replace it when it gets too bad. They're cheap.

 

[DonPowers]

Same boat with regard to finding a good anvil, always to late, to far or to much.

In the mean time, I use a four foot section of railroad track to hammer on. Don't want to cut it shorter because its used for weight in the back of my truck during the winter and sometimes as an anchor for the float when the grandkids are here.

 

[wkndwarrior29]

Any reason you can't drill and tap holes to bolt some steel to the top? It will ensure a flat surface and allow you replacement down the road. I guess it could cost you a few drill bits though...

 

[toolchaser]

My neighbor had a large old anvil that the top was badly worn, almost sway -backed. He built up the top using his arc welder & AR rod, then had it Blanchard ground at the shop he retired from. Turned out awesome!

 

[OverkillYJ]

I have been thinking of using flush 9/16 or 5/8 grade 8 flange bolts to bolt down a hardened steel plate to the face. Then just hit the bolt heads with weld so they never work loose. I have a larger Walker Turner Drill press I can put it in, as well as all the good bots and taps/fluids to do it properly. The only thing I am not doing with this is getting Nickle 55 wire. If I went out and dropped $100 on a 1lb spool of that I could weld a face right on. For $200 I will eventually find a real anvil worth putting the elbow grease into though.

BTW. My brother actually works at a steel hardening place that handles gov contracts and stuff. They harden the gears for destroyers and stuff. Once I cut the plate I could have him harden it for free. Just not sure I should mess with it. I expect it to take me a year or more to find the real anvil I want though.

As for how it functions. I beat on it for over an hour yesterday ripping apart stuff made in the 60's. Does what I bought it for perfectly fine. SInce I have a large OXY/Acy setup and a bunch or round and square stock on hand I would like to do some hot work on top in my spare time. Hammering hot steel on this would look like a waste of time to me.

If I could find nice things that drop in the hardy hole, or make my own stuff that drops in the hole, that may be all I really need over the next year or two.

 

[PugetDude]

Beat the **** out of this one and save your money for a good one. Anything else is a waste of time and money.

 

[vintagespeed1956]

the only real way to weld a plate on that surface that isn't going to be hollow from warpage is to plug weld it. then you'll need to grind the top flat and harden it.

seems like a total waste of time though.

 

[dkroth]

No real help for OP, but here's a turd anvil that used to be a sweet piece of iron:

http://rochester.craigslist.org/tls/5168297022.html

 

[nine4gmc]

I'd buy that just to beat on sh!t, what's the worst that could happen to it?

 

[My Old Tools]

http://emersonhorseshoe.net/21-anvils

 

[Shiftless]

Why hasn't anybody else suggested scrounging a piece of old train rail?
It is heavy, made of high grade forged steel and since it was presumably used to carry rail traffic it is certainly "work hardened"

 

[nine4gmc]

Don mentioned he uses RR track above^.

 

[Shiftless]

Don mentioned he uses RR track above^.

Sorry, you're right of course. My speed reading missed his post.