Anvil Repair Questions for Mr. Ralph and others

MaxTheKnife

MaxTheKnife

Joined
Aug 19, 2000
Messages
643
I came across this anvil while cleaning out a long neglected area of my shop. It's a 151 lb. Haybudden. The face is broken out of what was once the 'sweet spot'. I've heard that you can repair this kind of damage with a certain type of welding rod, but have no idea what type it is or where to start with repairs. I'm a fair hand at welding, but not a pro by any means. It looks like a clean break prpbably the result of a dirty weld at the plant where it was made. I'm pretty sure the body is solid wrought iron, but don't know for sure.

Should I try to repair it myself or save trouble by having it repaired by professionals. I've always believed that you should leave professional work to the professionals, but am just hard headed enough to try something like this myself to save a little money. Any helpful hints would be appreciated. Here's a pic for all you pic lovers.
http://images.honesty.com/imagedata/7/2/2/15025722.jpg

[This message has been edited by MaxTheKnife (edited 09-26-2000).]
 
Hay Budden is a wrought iron anvil. This will probably be an expensive weld but it is doable. A lot of people recomend against welding, to repair anvils, but to me this looks like the only way.
This is what I would do.
First and very important is to preheat the entire anvil to at least 200f. making sure that the entire anvil is hot through (soak time) You will need an intermediate pass between the the wrought tron and the hard facing rod. I would use two passes of 7018 the 2nd pass at right angles to the first pass, you want at least two passes of hard facing to bring the face up even with the original face. The hard facing will have to be a bit higher than the orignal face so you can grind it flush and smooth.

Check with your weld supplier for the type hardfacing rod you will need, some rod needs to be quenched. Which you will have to do anway. In order to weld to the original face it will have to be normalized, or cracks will occur along the tie in of the hardface and the original face.
Keep in mind that during the entire welding process the anvil should still be at 200f.
When the welding is complete allow the anvil to cool slowly cover with kaowool or some other heat retaining medium.

After the weld is cooled and the grinding is complete the face must be brought up to critical and quenched with vast quantities of water.

It is doable but.

Another method would be to bring the anvil up to welding temp and hammer weld a face on the anvil.
I've been a code weldor for the past 24 years, that's how I see it.
For a second opinion go to www.anvifire.com and ask the Guru's in the Guru's Den.

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Sola Fide
 
In other words, Haybudden boat anchor for sale!
biggrin.gif
 
Originally posted by MaxTheKnife:
In other words, Haybudden boat anchor for sale!
biggrin.gif
Click to expand...

Easily repaired...just a lot of work, probably worth it though. Preheat to a minimum of 400 degrees and maintain. Build up with 110-18 electrode to about 1/8" or slightly more below original surface. Now for the difficult part of all this. Due to the preheat and the welding the temper has been drawn from the remaining face on the anvil...it is too soft. The entire face will need to be hardsurfaced and ground smooth. I've found a great electode for anvil repair...it leaves a high nickle, high impact resistant surface, it is forgable but nonmachinable..it is about rockwell 58 as deposited. It is Wear-Arc 5 IP, made by ESAP. Complete the build-up on the damaged section...then go over the entire face of the anvil with at least two weave passes...no heat treatment is nessesary, just a lot of grinding. If you don't want that old thing I'll be glad to come by for a visit.
 
Originally posted by MaxTheKnife:
In other words, Haybudden boat anchor for sale!
biggrin.gif
Click to expand...

Easily repaired...just a lot of work, probably worth it though. Preheat to a minimum of 400 degrees and maintain. Build up with 110-18 electrode to about 1/8" or slightly more below original surface. Now for the difficult part of all this. Due to the preheat and the welding the temper has been drawn from the remaining face on the anvil...it is too soft. The entire face will need to be hardsurfaced and ground smooth. I've found a great electode for anvil repair...it leaves a high nickle, high impact resistant surface, it is forgable but nonmachinable..it is about rockwell 58 as deposited. It is Wear-Arc 5 IP, made by ESAP. Complete the build-up on the damaged section...then go over the entire face of the anvil with at least two weave passes...no heat treatment is nessesary, just a lot of grinding. If you don't want that old thing I'll be glad to come by for a visit.
 
Why the 400 prheat? 400 shouldn't be enough to ruin the temper of the original face but welding into it without normalizing will cause problems down the road.

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Sola Fide
 
Perhaps I should have said a minimum of 400 degrees, 500, 600, 700, or 800 is even better. I also have a 151 lb hay-budden. It had been severely abused. I repaired it with McCoy hardalloy 118 which was suppose to work harden to rockwell 55..well, maybe so, but not sure if it will do it in this lifetime. Although it is a good tough face, and you don't have to worry about chipping the edges. But I like it a little harder. So When I got my 165 lb Peter Wright that needed rerepairing I used the esap electrode. Worked great. I have been a fulltime welder for 32 years...blacksmithing and bladesmithing is a serious hobby. I must add that I do not normally advise welding on an anvil...it is a last resort repair on an otherwise useless anvil. A little grinding to clean it up or just working around a blemish is usually the best way to go.

 
Seabourn, what's the reason for such a high preheat?
I would think 200f. would be plenty?


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Sola Fide
 
Mike, as another welder you know that some things need to be preheated before welding, but 200..as far as steel is concerned.. is merely warm. Kinda like drawing the temper on a blade, 200 wouldn't do much, even at 375 or 400 degrees the blade is still very hard, but that range is almost the minimum at which you draw the temper. 400 degrees is about the minimum heat required to induce molecular expansion enough for dissimular metals to be welded safely...more is usually better. A red heat would be ideal I suppose, but not necessary. I'm probably not explaining this very well, I have a little trouble with words sometimes. Perhaps a metallurgist can jump in here and explain things better than I have done.
But I do know that often people will use the wrong electrodes to hard surface an anvil. They either use one that is too soft, or they use one that is designed to resist abrasion...but it is too hard and the corners will chip. An anvil only needs moderate abrasion resistance but it needs a very high impact resistance. I tested the electrode I recommended by welding on the edge of a truck leaf spring, then beat on it with a 6 lb hammer...it neither chipped, cracked or deformed....dented my hammer though. A hammer is easier to replace than an anvil.

 
HAY BUDDEN BOAT ANCHOR FOR SALE!!!!!!!

If you need an anvil for cheap I surfaced a rail road track dpown. I jhave gotten used to it and like it alot. It is small enough for small works and wide and flat enough for long work. Just my thoghts . Never have been an anvil junkie..

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Web Site At www.darrelralph.com
 
Hardening an anvil sounds like something impossible to do for people with no special equipment. No so!
We just did it with a 75 kilo (about 160 pounds) japanese style block anvil. Just built a tube from kaowool around it and heated it with a normal propane torch which is normally used for roof isolation work (50 mm handheld burner). Took about 90 minutes to bring it to critical. Two 3-gallon buckets of water onto the top of it. Cooling down the rest of the heat with water from a normal garden hose. Pretty hard at about 56 HRc.

A fast and easy way to determine if the surface is hard enough is to let a roller bearing ball (i use a 1" ball) fall onto the surface from about 10 to 15 inches. If it bounces right back into your hand it's really good. A bounce up to half of the distance is so-so. Below that it's no good.

NC Tool horseshoers supplies sells special repair rods for anvils. No rehardening needed.

Achim
 
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