[TheForge] Anvil Repair

[Peter Fels and Phoebe Palmer]

At 07:56 PM 1/8/02, you wrote:

A little bit of negativity here to keep things balanced.
Don't weld on an innocent anvil unless you really have to!
There are several reasons why not to.
I say this having done a careful job on mine.
1. Any time you weld on hardened  tool steel, such as an anvil face, you 
are adding stress to the forge weld between the body and the face. If that 
fails, you are screwed.
2.Next to the weld is a heat affected zone. Part of it will be soft, and 
part too hard with a coarse grain structure. It is impossible to retain the 
original hardness everywhere.
3. Sometimes large chunks fly off the edge of a welded up anvil after a few 
years. It's ugly.
4. Welding ruins whatever collector value it might have. If the anvil is 
very old, this is important.
5. When I first got an anvil, I wanted the face to be perfect with nice 
square edges....wrong.
The edges on your anvil should be soft curves with a choice of radiuses to 
work with. On the rare occasions you need a hard edge, make up a hardy 
stake for that. Most  flaws on anvil edges can be smoothed out  and rounded 
up with some careful grinding...and sometimes a chipped spot can be worked 
into a useful form.
6. If your anvil face isn't "glass hard" it is possible to hammer out a lot 
of the shallower dents and dings....using a hard, polished, gently crowned 
hammer.  It takes a lot of moderate blows to herd the displaced steel 
back  where it came from...but the hammer will just float on the rebound.

If you just have to  weld it...be real careful about your preheat and 
postheat...slow and even. Be fastidious about your weld prep.
I used an air powered chipping hammer with a blunt point to peen each pass 
as it cooled. This off sets some of the shrinkage.
Use skinny stringer beads and let the heat even out between passes.
There should be a tough underlayer of something like 7018 or 8016 under the 
hard top layer. If the body is wrought then a mild steel rod could go under 
the other 2 layers ( dont do this step last). Hammer the face before you do 
the final grind.
Pretty soon, I'll work up an opinion about this.



>They vary a lot as someone else mentioned. If you get a bright light and look
>at the Dudley-Wright edge carefully, you can often see the top plate if it was
>a separate piece.
>
>A weed burner works well to heat the anvil. It helps speed the process if you
>box in the anvil with bricks or insulation of some kind. I suppose you could
>also wait for a nice summer day in Texas and leave it out in the sun. You need
>to pay attention and not overheat it.
>
>I use Rob Gunter's method. He is a lot more particular about getting it up to
>300 degrees than Randy Calhoun, who is both an experienced smith and a welding
>instructor. Randy says anything over 200 degrees is plenty. I tend toward the
>hot side of the two.
>
>Steve
>
>Larry wrote:
>
> > Thanks Steve,
> >     Do you know how thick the steel face is on a PW?  The edges have taken
> > some serious abuse, and I don't think it has ever been repaired before.
> >     The Dudley-Wright has signs of repairs.  I wonder if it was built the
> > same way, steel on wrought iron.  If so, then the same info would apply.
> >
> >     So to heat an anvil to 300 degrees without taking it into the wife's
> > kitchen...........  Set it on the forge and keep the air low? hum.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Larry
> >
> > Steve Smith wrote:
> >
> > > It sounds like you're not going to do the welding yourself; plenty of
> > > advice around theforge if you are.
> > >
> > > The difficulties I've seen come from the different types of steel and
> > > iron in the anvils. For instance, Peter Wrights have a hard top plate
> > > welded to a wrought iron body. The two materials need different rods for
> > > a successful weld. A good welder (without specific anvil experience)
> > > should be able to figure out rods that will stick (experimental process
> > > at worst). You not only have to make successful welds, you need to use a
> > > rod material that will hold up under typical use.
> > >
> > > The repairs I've done were with Stoody 1105 and 2110 rods. The 1105
> > > sticks well to the body of a PW, the 2110 works well on top. The 2110
> > > comes out just a little soft in my mind, but on the other hand it
> > > doesn't seem to chip. These aren't cheap rods.
> > >
> > > You must preheat the anvil before welding (300 degrees works, don't get
> > > up to 400 or you will start to lose your temper!).
> > >
> > > Steve Smith
> > >
> > > Larry wrote:
> > >
> > > > I have 3 anvils, a Peter Wright, a Dudley-Wright, and a
> > > > Hey-Budden.  All have various signs of mis-use and abuse.  I
> > > > was wondering what I need to know and avoid when having
> > > > these repaired/restored for use.  Is there someone in
> > > > central Texas that does this kind of work?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >
> > > > Larry
> > > >
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