I found some steel...

jhiggins

jhiggins

Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Messages
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...now how do I get it home?

I found a piece of steel plate, 4 feet wide x 9 feet long... get this... TEN INCHES THICK! The owner says I can have this steel, but how in world would I get it home, and furthermore what a cool batch of anvils that would make!

Any suggestions?
 
jhiggins said:
...now how do I get it home?

I found a piece of steel plate, 4 feet wide x 9 feet long... get this... TEN INCHES THICK! The owner says I can have this steel, but how in world would I get it home, and furthermore what a cool batch of anvils that would make!

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

:eek: :eek:
you'll either need one hell of a truck or have to torchcut it on site before transporting it... any idea what it used to be? sounds interesting.

Kenny
 
sorry, but i just have to post again. are you sure the measurements are right? thats about 6-7 tonnes of steel...
 
You are going to need a tractor trailer and a big crane, plus weld some lifting lugs on the slab, unless you can cut it up a bit. Otherwise, you will probably have to flag down an alien spaceship to transport it. One other option, cut it up (I don't know how you are gonna cut it, maybe a plasma cutter) and still are going to need at least some type of power assist to load the steel. Phil Wilson used to get his CPM in big slabs, and I beleive he used a plasma cutter to get workable size pieces to grind. How far do you have to transport it? I wish you the best of luck. It would certainly be worth getting it home, I think.
 
Damn that's a lot of steel! Good luck with moving it. :)
 
Grab it !! You'll be able to use the anvil to make 9 ' long swords !! Actually you would have to get a big crane and truck and transport it to a steel supplier or someone who has equipment to cut it into manageble pieces. But what type of steel is it ??
 
sounds like a job for a forklift and flatbed trailer. Cutting it up, will for sure be a job. sounds like a job for a commerical bandsaw. I would check into a scrap yard and see if they might be interested, sell it to them and buy some good using blade steel with the money. They would probably come get it and all you would have to do is stand there and take there money. Other then that it would be way more then I would want to fool with, so good luck.

Bill
 
It's structural steel. I have no idea what the old company made there. They went out of business years ago, and yes, the dimensions I gave are quite accurate. I look at that slab of steel and see all these cool anvils and pinion blocks for forging presses and all that. Oh and di I mention that this humongous plate of steel is underneath several slabs that are similar in size, but only 6 and 8 inches in thickness?

Trouble is with snagging this steel is that the old company no longer exists and there's no place I can think of that would have the equipment MOBILITY to come to the site to cut it up. I shoudl grab my camera and get a shot of it for you guys. You'll drool. Trouble is, I'm like a looking at a canary in a cage. I know its in there, I know it'll taste good, but I also know that unless a miracle happens, I'll never get it.
 
HACKSAW ! :D

Where there is a will, there is a way!

Bill had the best idea yet...do a little checking in the classifieds. Lots of people buy scrap. Get them to move it for you and cut off say 1/3 in exchange for giving them 2/3.

You may be able to cut it with a cutting torch. Kinda pushing the limit but it's worth a try.

Good luck!
 
man that is AWESOME

I spent this weekend looking around scrapyards and found what I thought was the perfect piece of steel for an anvil... unfortunately the sucker ended weighing an estimated #350+ so was way out of my league. I ended up with a piece that is roughly 24"x8"x2" and it weighed 100lbs - great ring, very tough stuff.

That piece you found sounds like the motherlode. PICS PLEASE :D
 
Here's another throught, go to your local tool rental store and see if they have a power saw like a hand held concrete saw that will cut it. Man it could be a time consuming trick to chop it up this way if at all, but if you want something bad enough there's a way. The problem I see is, once you get it home if you do, its going to be very time comsuming to cut it up into the sizes you want, unless you have a commerical sized bandsaw sitting in your shop. It's usually and I don't mean to be a pain in the butt, but a lot quicker and easier to just go buy the size stock you need and build your dies,etc. then to try and salvage them out of over sized stock. Good luck what ever you do.

Bill
 
JH, check in the phone book for a metal fabrication outfit. This place is smallsville and we have a couple of em so I bet your town has one or two. Give em a call and see what they'd charge to haul it and cut it up for you. They have the gear and experience to deal with stuff that big. Plus most of the folks in that line of work are knife nuts thru and thru! hint hint hint ;) Well, the ones here are anyway! :D
 
With the price of scrap metals at an all time high, that sounds like it could be a significant windfall. I'd find a way to secure it and sell it off and buy a bunch of new stuff for your shop. With the cash that would generate you could buy quite a few anvils of your choosing.

John
 
jmxcpter said:
With the price of scrap metals at an all time high, that sounds like it could be a significant windfall. I'd find a way to secure it and sell it off and buy a bunch of new stuff for your shop. With the cash that would generate you could buy quite a few anvils of your choosing.

John
Click to expand...


should be around $1500 USD if you sold it as scrap...
 
Well I'm here with some sad news - on two accounts. First of all, I contacted the owner of the property just to be sure. I wasn't really comfortable with the caretaker giving that steel to me. The owner was really nice and said that yes I could have that piece if I removed it before May 1st because the property was changing hands on May 3rd, along with all the steel.

He had no more equipment at that facility to deal with handling steel that big. It was all sold when he closed the company doors. I checked into several places that could possibly move and cut that steel for me. The cheapest was the riggers I occasionally use to move equipment here at work. They wanted just too much money to do it, so I'm dropping it.

That was the first account of sadness. Secondly, my main source of free steel closed its doors and gave all its employees the boot. THAT SUX!

MINI-RANT: Why can't America keep some decent companies in this country? LOL, we are all to blame because we buy goods made offshore when we should be insisting as Americans to purchase goods made in AMERICA!

I need a hug. :(
 
I'm sorry to hear it Jeff. It was a good find.

Why can't America keep some decent companies in this country

There is a lot wrong with our country and a lot of the people in it Jeff. I'm not going to start another of my rants but much of it concerns people like ourselves that work, try to use up waste materials and only ask to make enough money to live on.

I was saddened to see IG's post about the hammerin. I have been in his place many times and gotten the same amount of help or the lack thereof.
I have said many times that when times get tough, you find out who your real friends are and that you don't have many!

These issues are part of the root problem in this country and why American companies are all going away! :grumpy:
 
well, if what you wanted was an anvil, its still not too late and shouldnt be too expensive to torchcut say a 6" X 12" chunk of it and just drive it home. do you know how to torchcut?

Kenny
 
KennyC said:
do you know how to torchcut?
Click to expand...

Does a fat dog fart?

Nah, I'm dropping the whole idea. I was just thinking how cool it would be to have some REALLY BIG chunks of steel. Besides, I already got a very very very sweet anvil - Nimba Centurion.
 
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