Thread: railroad track anvil

I bought an anvil at a estate sale for about 15$ if I remember right , it was a hundred pounder, might be cheaper that way than grinder wheels,, but good luck on it,, I,ve got a piece of rail in my shop buried deep that I used for my fabricating on motorcyles , I ought to go find it, probably under one of the project bikes, so let us know how it goes. Tc

I have had several sections of rail road track that I have used as an anvil in the past, my favorite setup was with the track turned on end. It makes for a small surface, but you have all of the mass directly under it.

I had it buried in a big bucket of pea gravel with the end small end face up. The metal would move ok and the track section would not ring while mostly buried in the pea gravel.

Charlie

Many years ago I had ambitions to do some blacksmithing. At that time I bought this book here . Since than I see the same author has a newer and larger edition, by more than double the pages, with great reviews ........... The Complete-Modern-Blacksmith here.

Anyway the guy has a great writeup on how to make an anvil out of a piece of railroad rail, including heat treating/hardening the anvil surface. I never got around to it, and probably never will. Hope someone gets something out of one of these books and reports back with the finished anvil.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Many years ago I had ambitions to do some blacksmithing. At that time I bought this book here . Since than I see the same author has a newer and larger edition, by more than double the pages, with great reviews ........... Robot Check

Anyway the guy has a great writeup on how to make an anvil out of a piece of railroad rail, including heat treating/hardening the anvil surface. I never got around to it, and probably never will. Hope someone gets something out of one of these books and reports back with the finished anvil.

One of my favorite books

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

I bought an anvil at a estate sale for about 15$ if I remember right , it was a hundred pounder, might be cheaper that way than grinder wheels,, but good luck on it,, I,ve got a piece of rail in my shop buried deep that I used for my fabricating on motorcyles , I ought to go find it, probably under one of the project bikes, so let us know how it goes. Tc

I have searching desperately for an anvil to no avail! I was looking high and low and I figured someone would have one laying around... I even posts on Facebook asking if people had seen one in their grandparents garage lol... The ones I found online had high shipping charges so aside from buying one from harbor freight I sprung on this one... I hope it goes well and definitely will report...

Originally Posted by spazola

I have had several sections of rail road track that I have used as an anvil in the past, my favorite setup was with the track turned on end. It makes for a small surface, but you have all of the mass directly under it.

I had it buried in a big bucket of pea gravel with the end small end face up. The metal would move ok and the track section would not ring while mostly buried in the pea gravel.

Charlie

Hey that's a great idea! I origianlly was looking for a post anvil like yours that I had seen in a video but no luck there either... Thanks for the suggestion! Charlie

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Many years ago I had ambitions to do some blacksmithing. At that time I bought this book here . Since than I see the same author has a newer and larger edition, by more than double the pages, with great reviews ........... The Complete-Modern-Blacksmith here.

Anyway the guy has a great writeup on how to make an anvil out of a piece of railroad rail, including heat treating/hardening the anvil surface. I never got around to it, and probably never will. Hope someone gets something out of one of these books and reports back with the finished anvil.

Yeah u bought 2 books on smithing so I could learn and so I got the basics, reading these books should help as well... I'm also going to a local blacksmith where I got this anvil and asked if I could help on the weekends as "volunteer" work if he taught me and he agreed so that was awesome!

I was also thinking about going up to your meet in February, that's if I get the ol' lady to let me ditch her on Valentine's Day lol... Or she is just going to have to come with hahaha

Originally Posted by Dafonz6987

First a draw on this bad boy and show where I want to cut this for the horn...: then I'm cutting underneath it to give some room... More pictures to come to show where the cuts will be... Pictures of that I'll be posters shortly... I got about 5 cut off wheels for this adventure i hope that's enough lol!

One thing I would like to point out is that the steel appears to be tilted to the right? Now I'm not sure if all rail road track is supposed to be that way...Attachment 226255Attachment 226256Attachment 226257

Nope pretty typical on the leaning.
Its beginning to wear out, and thats why you have it. Other than that, a train would still be using it.

By the way......your gonna need more wheels, and full face protection. Glasses wont be enough.

A little something to chew on....
my track was 21" long, I had a guy cut it into 3" pieces, using a industrial electric band saw.
He told me, each cut took 45 min.
So it took roughly a whole work day to cut up. And took me around 4 1/2 hrs, to make one small pinning anvil, not including the time painting.


"HAVE FUN"!!!!

Wow that anvil looks great! Is it the picture or does ur track seem taller? With shorter side on the top piece... Or is that how u ground it

Boy do I feel like I embarked on more than I can chew now... Well non the less I still had chosen to take this journey and I'm going to try my best to follow though...

Don't forget some kind of breathing protection as well. A dust mask as a minimum, but a respirator would be better.

And your piece of track was in a curve. The side closest to the center of the curve wears out quicker.

Have you checked craigslist for an anvil? A friend of mine got one for free on that site by just hauling it off for them. Could be worth a look.

Originally Posted by Dafonz6987

Wow that anvil looks great! Is it the picture or does ur track seem taller? With shorter side on the top piece... Or is that how u ground it

Boy do I feel like I embarked on more than I can chew now... Well non the less I still had chosen to take this journey and I'm going to try my best to follow though...

It may be taller, my pinning anvil is shorter than those.

Here's a pic of mine to the right of the one I had cut.