Thread: portable anvil

I made a portable anvil, I had a big chink of O1 I bought a while back and have been wanting to do something with it.

I heated then air quenched with a couple of fans. I think the air cooled O1 will be good enough for an anvil.

Non-coated ceramic wool wigs me out a bit, I am glad it was a windy day and I have a good fitting respirator.

Everything but the welding rods and the nuts and bolts came from the scrap yard.

I'm not sure why you need a probable anvil. I have no idea why I would need one either, but man that thing is cool, well now that it has quite glowing anyway. :-)

Hey Charlie

By "portable" do you mean not attached to the floor?

I do not think that is something I would want to carry around. har

Originally Posted by rolodave

Hey Charlie

By "portable" do you mean not attached to the floor?

I do not think that is something I would want to carry around. har

You got that right! Not i.

Charlie you are way cool! I like it ,, I want to hammer something on it! Tc

The legs and chunk of steel are bolted together, each half is still heavy but I can move it without straining too much.

I wanted something I could take to knife making meets. The tripod setup will work on uneven ground.

I have a couple of friends with similar setups, that I am jealous of. ( maybe I am just keeping up with Jones's or in this case the Smith's )

I like it and it should work exactly as you planned as long as the "anvil" is hard enough. Have you had an opportunity to strike it to see if it's hard enough?

Would it have air hardened much?
I'm curious what the Rockwell hardness would be.
It wouldn't need to be 'hard' hard. Iirc Mike Blue once mentioned that his anvils were unhardened and they would harden through working on them. Not that it would be really hard, but had enough compared to the orange colored steel you are hammering on it.

Btw I remember seeing that block of O1 and wondering what you were going to do with it. But then I was drawn to the pulled pork and forgot all about it

TCs pulled pork will take your mind off razor stuff.

I thought you air quenched steel to make it soft or at least softer.

Alec Steele talks about his striking anvils being soft. I'm thinking it doesn't matter much for the actual forging, but it is a longevity factor. I built up some of the edges on my anvil with 11018 welding rod and they are holding up admirably.