Home-made anvil questions

[JoshEarl]

I spent a couple of hours scavenging around a junkyard today looking for some steel to use for an anvil. I didn't get what I was hoping for, but I did find something that I'm going to attempt to use.

It looks like a huge car strut, for lack of a better word. I think it's an industrial hydraulic component. There are couplings at either end that are about 3" or 4" square. I got a bucket and stood it on end in some cement. It stands about 31" high now, just a smidge over knuckle high. I'm planning to forge on the couplings.

I have a few questions:
- If it was a hydraulic component, that's not something that could blow up or anything when I start wailing on it, right?
- How can I tell if the steel will hold up to forging? When I hit it with my hammer, I can mark the steel with the sharp edge of the head. (I need to grind that off...) Does that sound too soft? The mark looks like a thumbnail print, not a hammer impression.
- Any guesses as to what type of steel this might be? I have a hard time imagining industrial equipment made out of something other than high-carbon steel, but I don't know much about it.
- If the steel is on the softer side, is there a way I can work-harden it a bit?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Josh

 

[insanity]

If it a single piece of steel that doesn't have fluid in it it should be fine. If the face you will be forging on is soft, (the shafts of cylinders are hard chromed) then as you work on it it will harden some. It might not make a great anvil, but should work fine.

WS

 

[JoshEarl]

If it a single piece of steel that doesn't have fluid in it it should be fine. If the face you will be forging on is soft, (the shafts of cylinders are hard chromed) then as you work on it it will harden some. It might not make a great anvil, but should work fine.

WS

I can see the shaft below the coupling, and I was thinking that if the coupling was too soft I might be able to cut the coupling off and work directly on the shaft.

This thing looks like it might have had fluid in it at one point, but it's been laying around so long it's probably long gone. It seems to consist of a shaft 4" in diameter enclosed in a casing of 1/2" steel. One coupling is mounted on the shaft, and the other is welded to the outside of the casing. That part is buried in cement right now.

Josh