4140 post anvil

[rustyboy]

Due to financial troubles i had to sell my beloved haybudden anvil, but not letting the tears weigh me down i have decided to press onward and make a stump anvil. I've gone this route before when i first started forging, but that was using the steel as is, now i decided to try my hands at heat treating the 4140.

So off to stormcrows shop with a 3"X6" piece of round stock 4140.

I love those jumbo tongs, i found them locally for 10 bucks - score.

Once it's all done we have video footage to post. We heat treated it this past monday with interesting results. The first quench was in a medium quench oil from mcmaster. Works fine for thinner cross sections but did not work on this 13 pound chunk. So i decided to temp (no pun intended) fate and water quench. I brought back up to temp and James hit it with the hose full on in the face (man that sounds bad). definitely harder that with the oil quench but still not as hard as i know we could get, but I've decided to play it safe and see how it does as is.

Hopefully all this work will lead to the HT of this

my 4X4X12 piece of 4140 that i want to use as my permanent post anvil. Maybe i should have gone with the 4340. oh well, onwards.

 

[BallewBlade]

That's a serious piece of steel, must have taken forever to heat up red hot! Thanks for shareing, I hope you have some success with your new anvil

 

[coldsteelburns]

Oh nice! I've been trying to source a nice post anvil for quite some time now, may I ask where you got that big piece of 4140 from (the 4X4X12")? I think for the quenching you want multipul buckets of cold water being poured on it continually for a few minutes to get it harder than with just a hose (I saw this in a youtube vid) however I'm no expert in heat trating large pieces of steel.. not an expert in any HT actually :foot: Thanks for sharing, I hope it works out!

~Paul

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My YT Channel Lsubslimed

 

[rustyboy]

i found it at southerntoolsteel.com, they had the best price of the other metals distributors i found. I think i may go the sea robin anvil route and just heat treat the top 3" or 4" of the steel. I'll still need a big 55 gallon bucket of super quench though. we'll see.

 

[SinePari]

Rusty,

keep your eyes peeled for forklift forks on craigslist. I've scored all of mine for less than $.40/lbs. They're composition is most often 4140/4340 Each of mine were from Europe, and each individual manufacturer listed the material as 40Cr... They make good tooling stock as well, great to have random drops of the stuff hanging around...

 

[Storm Crow]

There's pile of forklift tines at the local junkyard. Never checked on prices on them, though. Got a decent Peter Wright.

 

[SinePari]

There's pile of forklift tines at the local junkyard. Never checked on prices on them, though. Got a decent Peter Wright.

They're a great inexpensive source for power hammer dies, hammers, hardy tools, etc... I even used a monster of a tine in my press build as the reinforcement/slide plate... I love the idea of having such an inexpensive and abundant source of good steel hanging around the shop...


kudos to you for helping rusty out!

 

[rustyboy]

[video=youtube_share;9rA5rqf8nM4]http://youtu.be/9rA5rqf8nM4[/video]

 

[SinePari]

[video=youtube_share;9rA5rqf8nM4]http://youtu.be/9rA5rqf8nM4[/video]

Wow!!!

This video needs to be stickied so it never gets buried... Great job guys!!! I was surprised that tub didn't melt... lol


This place and all the people who call it home amaze me.... This video will help an immense number of people and inspire even more... Very good stuff!!!

 

[Storm Crow]

I was afraid that if we set the anvil down too soon we would melt the tub and flood my shop with salty water. But there wasn't any scorching.

We did crack the sides of the tub from resting the tongs on the rim. It won't do another anvil.

Here's a rebound test after hardening:

[video=youtube;cFaK19R_bCg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFaK19R_bCg[/video]

In spite of our minor mistakes, it seems to have hardened just right and will make a dandy bladesmith's anvil.