Railroad Rail Anvil

B

B.V.

Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
194
Could anyone provide insight on how to flatten a portion of a railroad rail to be used as an anvil? I know I saw one done that way in a thread here a while back. Any help would be great!!

Brad
 
One Big @$$ed Hammer! :eek:

Might suggest a big piece of leaf spring welded to a large piece of steel as a make shift anvil.

Jason
 
I have used a RR tie anvil and it was not nearly heavy enough. Bounced all over the place if you hit it hard. It had been flattened with a big grinder. You could find a machine shop that could mill the top off for you. I have never milled one so I can't say what it would cost for me to do it. to make the anvil work better you could weld some large chunks of steel into the slots on the side of the tie. I was thinking about trying to do it.
 
Railroad track has been hinted at being or similar to 1070-1080. and by the time we get them they are work hardened. You want the bounce in an anvil, it makes for much less hammer arm fatigue. and I read it wrong at first, yea you can try to mill it but it might be better to have it surface ground. or even shaped with an old school shaper. Any engine rebuilding shop should be able to do it for you.

Jason
 
If you select a piece of rail that is well worn, the trains will have already made it flat for you. The new stuff is rounded, the old stuff is flat. Inspect carefully what you purchase. I found a piece years ago which was actually laminated with harder material to contact the train wheels and softer material as the base. The railroad had decomissioned it because it was starting to de-laminate.

Good luck on your endeavor.
 
If you select a piece of rail that is well worn, the trains will have already made it flat for you. The new stuff is rounded, the old stuff is flat. Inspect carefully what you purchase. I found a piece years ago which was actually laminated with harder material to contact the train wheels and softer material as the base. The railroad had decomissioned it because it was starting to de-laminate.

Good luck on your endeavor.
 
I milled the top of mine when I made it. The top surface is very hard on the cutter and it took quite a while but it did work. I then milled the edges flat and shaped the horn with a grinder. Then I sanded it all out and polished it. To add some mass I welded it to another section of track, then slapped some paint on it.

About 3 weeks after I did all that, I found an anvil locally for 25 bucks :mad:

anvil.jpg


anvil1.jpg


Brad
www.AndersonKnives.ca
 
Last edited:
Teknition said:
I milled the top of mine when I made it. The top surface is very hard on the cutter and it took quite a while but it did work. I then milled the edges flat and shaped the horn with a grinder. Then I sanded it all out and polished it. To add some mass I welded it to another section of track, then slapped some paint on it.

About 3 weeks after I did all that, I found an anvil locally for 25 bucks :mad:

anvil.jpg


anvil1.jpg


Brad
www.AndersonKnives.ca
Click to expand...

That is freaking cool!!!!!
 
Thanks for the info all. A friend gave me the piece of rail I am looking to use. Its about a foot long. I wanted a "real" anvil but boy are they expensive. Old World Anvil's sell a small 4X4X4 anvil for 80 Bucks....but it looks like it would jump around as bad or worse than the Rail would. I spent part of the day lookin for an old bent forklift fork to use....but no luck there either. I'll look to use some of the info you have given to improve my rail.....and keep my eyes open too!

And the polished rail.....it looks too cool to use!!!!!
 
If anyone is in Atlanta, and wants to swing by, I have 4 pieces of track to give away. I work for a company that imports rail parts from China.
 
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