Subject: roll your own

From: [email-masked] (Roger Olsen)
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 06:17:46 -0800

>plan to have the top of the anvil milled down about 1\4 inch, the sides of
>the top of the anvil and plate milled to a 45 degree angle and the plate
>welded to the top of the anvil where the sides of the plate and anvil meet.
> Also we might bore two holes through the plate so we can also weld through
>the holes to thetop of the anvil for extra insurance.  The plate would be
>approximately 1"X 5"X18".  Does this method make since or should I just build
>the top of the anvil up with welding rod.

i think your plan could work, never done it or seen it done but have reAd
and heard of it, i remember hearing that no machine shop will level an
anvil face twice, they learn on the first one how hard they are, and amount
of damage or wear&tear on their equipment, also it was recommended to plug
weld the replacement piece every 2 inches or so with the hard facing rod
used on back-hoe teeth_________________a possible nother alternative?  i
was involved in an anvil reforging about 12 years back. a  261 lb.
peter-wright with a very bad saddle or depression in the center of the
face, it had actually widened the face as the saddle deepened___________ we
made a pipe bracket to bolt around the waist of the anvil that allowed long
pieces of pipe to slide thru for convenient lifting and
positioning_________built a nice big fire, added industrial coke and
nestled the anvil into position________we slowly brought it to a nice
almost lemon heat, (it took about two hours for the first working
heat)__________we brought it out and started banging__________we forged
from the sides first, where the saddle had widened the face, two people
swinging 16 lb. hammers from opposite sides timing their blows to land at
the same time___________after forging some mass back up we attacked the
face with triple striking with 16 and 14 pound hammers and someone else
working a flatter across the face________i think we did all this work in 4
or maybe 5 heats (i've never seen a forging heat last so long)__________we
hardened the face by pre-filling about 8   5 gallon buckets with water
filling up a stock tank and having two garden hoses running______________ a
creek or irrigatioin ditch would have been ideal but was not an option for
us_____________i use this anvil daily and have fond memories of the day "it
was reforged"

from the cascade mountains in north central washington,

roger