How many of you out there have built your own anvil because you could not find a good steel one. What did you use and how did you do it. Please include a pic if possible.
Hey BigHammer,
As people often say, pretty much anything can become an “anvil” since you just primarily need something hard to beat against. Do you mean it as in with horn, hardie/pritchel holes, etc? The classic anvil?
Or even just blocks that have been heat treated that are used?
I will sometimes use a few variety of thicker steel pieces, mostly S7 that has been heat treated, as benchtop or small hard surfaces when the anvil face is much larger than necessary.
I recently found this;
It is an 18 inch piece of 175 CR or 175 pounds per yard crane rail. As you can see it is much flatter on top than RR track and much heavier. Will be working on some type of a hardie and a horn. Now I need a welder…
Sorry, second post. will work on the photo
I kinda like the RR anvil. But, just 2 cents worth, instead of have that length of striking surface (of which you don’t need) stand the piece of RR on length. Cut the foot part of the RR and the Web out about 2 inches below the end. The new top piece of the rail is the striking surface. It takes many more blows AND it won’t take as many blows to forge your material.
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What you could do, as well, is call some structural iron fabricators and ask if they have any pieces of A36 that are at least 2" thick. 12"x12" square. This would weigh about 320lbs if I remember correctly. Stand it on its edge. Yam, bam, thank you ma’am you have a very firm anvil. If there are any cutting marks in it simply grind it smooth with a cup grinder, followed by a flap disc.
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