Anvil Sub: Stove Pipe Mandrel Stake

[silver_pilate]

A patient of mine gave me something interesting today. He worked for years as a sheet metal fabricator, and he had this laying around his garage. It's a three foot stove pipe mandrel/anvil (a.k.a. hollow mandrel stake). The back of the mandrel is flat and about 6"X10" with a half round mandrel extending about 22" from the anvil surface. It's slotted underneath for a T or square bolt hold down.

It looks exactly like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-60-lb-STOV...ryZ13869QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I took a regular hammer to it with a good bit of force just to see how it responded, and it rebounded well, but left shallow dents when hitting with the edge of the hammer face. It's been in use for probably 70 years and has only the typical surface mars with no deep gouges. Of course, they used it mostly with a wooden mallet.

Anyone know if these are hardened sufficiently to work as an anvil? I know I would have to mount it really well as it's only around 50 pounds. I took it home reguardless.

Thanks!

--nathan

 

[Gene Chapman]

The one on ebay has a slot and my guess it's cast iron or steel. Give it a spark test on a grinder.

 

[silver_pilate]

Took a dremel cut-off wheel to it. Not much sparkage. Bummer. About the same amount of spark as a piece of annealed 440C. My bet is that it is cast steel. Just wish it were hardened on the face.

--nathan

 

[J.S. Carter]

Weld a leaf spring to the face...

 

[silver_pilate]

Now there's an idea... Thanks!

--nathan