- Thread starter JOEPRO
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brightspark
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nothing apart from looking a bit krap when the beaks are the same height
Sergei Slovenija
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He destroyed the hardened layer from the face of the anvil. This is repaired with a heat-treated faceplate, secured via an expandable horizontal wedge.
brightspark
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the amount of wear would have been through it anyhow if it was hardened so no loss . i have an old one well worn and the angle grinder wont even look at it
Sergei Slovenija
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YouTube is full of videos of similar “restorations”. It's like the Olympic Games to see who can destroy the biggest anvil. This view shows an anvil-corpse. But she didn't get any better.
Brad93
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depends on the anvil sergei.
Over here we used to have an iron cast base with a piece of hardened steel fire welded to the top.
The piece that was fire welded on top was regularly ⅝" thick.
In them cases there is no problem milling or grinding the anvil down
Screwdriver
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I see no issue at all with that repair. Heavily swayed and dented surface is of limited use compared to a nice, perfectly flat surface. The forge welded hardened steel surface is as @Brad93 suggests a lot thicker than the skim they took off and even if it had been worn through, the first thing you'd need to do to properly forge weld a new surface is to skim it flat!
Not familiar with the "expandable wedge". Never heard of it. What's that all about? The only way to reproduce the original rebound would be to forge weld on a new face. A good second best is hard face welding. Wedges sounds like a bit of a bodge...
Not familiar with the "expandable wedge". Never heard of it. What's that all about? The only way to reproduce the original rebound would be to forge weld on a new face. A good second best is hard face welding. Wedges sounds like a bit of a bodge...
chrismac
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I have an old anvil which is in a poor state, will 7018s be good enough to build the top face back up for refacing? I have seen a few youtube videos and guys are welding the face up, I think one gave it a heat treatment then after which I wont be able to do, its on my to do list at some point if I get a way ahead,
Sergei Slovenija
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How was a steel plate welded to cast iron?
Screwdriver
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I think Brad was being casual with the phrasing saying "iron, cast" and not "cast iron". Clearly a typical full size blacksmith anvil is going to have a cast steel body, typically assembled from rough castings forge welded to form the anvil shape before the top plate is also forge welded on top.
Brad93
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Fire welded
Forge Welded
Hardened Steel plate and freshly cast anvil heated in a forge to sparkling heat, steel plate hammered or pressed onto the anvil.
And when i say cast iron - it won't be meehanite or SG iron. It will basically be a pig iron, more or less a wrought alloy.
The skills have been lost, forgotten to the ages.
But that's why you still see so many 150 year old anvils in good condition here. The surface is much tougher than any cast iron heat treated anvil. Maybe not as hard, but tougher for sure.
Sergei Slovenija
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I once listened to a lecture about what kind of anvils were used since the Copper Age. Making the first iron anvil weighing at least 20 kg was a real feat + gathering several experienced blacksmiths and hammerers in one place. Before the advent of water wheel-driven hammers, the anvil was shaped like a very large “nail” with a large head weighing several kilograms. That did not stop the blacksmiths from forging quite large objects. For massiveness, a "nail" was inserted into a hole in the stone, increasing countermass and overall rigidity. Anvils in ancient times were always expensive and were a coveted trophy in war.
Anvils with horns, as we are used to seeing, are a rather late invention, the fruits of the industrial revolution and metallurgy.
Sergei Slovenija
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I worked on archaeological expeditions with truly mass-produced cast iron products (boilers, oven doors). Manufactured no later than 1230. This cast iron was as fragile then as it is now.
Brad93
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Please inform Peter Wright of that then, for they have surely failed in producing more anvils than any other company in Britain. They were shipped all over the world.
And that anvil clearly isn't 800 years old? So what are you getting at.
As i've explained - these are not cast iron as per your boilers and oven doors, and neither were they produced in as many numbers. Your boilers and oven doors are nodular or grey iron.
These are a wrought alloy cast. Not high carbon, not nodular, not SG. More likely high silicon & manganese.
