Thread: My humble pinning anvil

Ive had this 4" piece of steal.about an inch thick in my toolbox for 20+ years. Used it for beating things on. I was wanting an anvil and dug it out. Polished it up to a mirror finish then figured i needed to drill a 5/64 hole thru it. Tried with a hand drill and broke two bits off in it. Then to it to work where the shop has a drill press. They melted a drill bit made for steal trying to get thru it. Dont know what it is or where i got it but its not going to have a hole. Will need to find something else.

The track pieces are great ideas. Ill look around.

If you guys are looking for a hunk of rail check eBay. All kinds of rail, big and small. There are also a couple guys that finish them into decent anvils if you don't want to mess with making one.

I picked up a couple pieces over the years, still have a 4' hunk that I picked up in the desert somewhere, HEAVY stuff. It is a bear to work with if you don't have a decent shop to use. I believe its mostly 1080 if I remember correctly and the top rail is hardened, which is why its so tough to work. It cuts pretty easily until the top inch or so of the rail.

Here's an old Sad Iron I'm converting into a small anvil, I can secure it in a vise or use it flat on my bench.
It's small but I think it will have more than enough mass to do pinning and other small jobs .

That's cool, MisterClean! Your sad iron make me happy.