Subject: Home made Anvil hardening, ABANA

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 15:14:46 CST

There is some discussion on the knife list about rolling your own anvil. 
The topic of how to effectively cool a 200+ pound anvil "quickly enough" 
is currently being discussed. 

If the steam envelope effectively keeps the coolant away from the
surface you wish to harden, what can be done? One participant
proposed an ocean or fast moving stream quench.

Also, isn't there an anvil construction demonstration at ABANA
this year? If you have seen it before, how do they quench the
anvil?

Thanks,
Vance

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From: Jim McCarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 13:53:12 -0500

> this year? If you have seen it before, how do they quench the

Vance,
At the BAM Conference this weekend there was a nice 200-lb Hay Budden 
with half the face broken off. We got to talking about it and decided 
to approach the owner about forge welding a new face on at our 
September meeting.After much discussion we came up with a plan -- we 
will build a fire in a trench and heat it with a blower from a coal 
stoker furnace that someone scrounged. The new plate will be heated in 
a seperate forge and brought up to the same temp as the anvil 
hopefully close to the same time. Then a team of three or four 
strikers will do the welding. We talked about quenching it, whichsome 
think can be done with a garden hose. However after several beers we 
decided the best bet would be to use air hardening steel -- weld it 
and your done.

Will let you know how it turned out.
Jim