[TheForge] Refacing old anvils?

[Kevin]

I'm a relatively new member to the listserve and I wanted to ask for 
opinions about making repairs to an anvil face.  I picked up an old anvil 
about 8-9 years ago that has a pretty large divot in the work face.  The 
defect is about 2x3 inches and is as deep as 1/2" at one point.  I used the 
anvil to work smaller projects for about 3 years before I could find 
another anvil in the area that I could afford.

At one point I tried to build up the divot using a hard surfacing weld rod, 
but saw that over time the repair began to develop a lot of cracks and 
eventually began to chip as I worked the anvil surface.  Over the past 
month I've been considering making a second attempt at the repair, this 
time using a low hydrogen weld rod (7018) instead.  The anvil face has a 
pretty high carbon content (I'm basing this on a spark test) so I'm not 
sure what kinds of pre- and post-heating procedures I should use in the 
repair.  In my first attempt I did not try to preheat the surface, and I've 
heard that this may have been the cause of the cracking.  I've heard that I 
should preheat the surface to ~350 degrees and maintain this temperature 
through the weld repair and for 2 to 3 hours after I've completed the 
repair in order to reduce cracking.

I was wondering if anyone else has had experience in making this type of 
repair to an anvil face, and if so, I'd appreciate any insight that could 
be provided.

Thanks,
Kevin