Homemade Anvil

[Tuomas]

Hi.

I wanted to have small anvil.
Made it from railroadtrack with angle grinder.
Used 2mm cut off wheels, 8mm grinding wheel and 80grit flap wheel for shaping. Removed the rust with steel brush.

[rossbotics]

Very good, nice work

[Tuomas]

Very good, nice work

Thank you very much!

[Paul Jones]

Tomas,

I have several short sections of railroad track picked up as remnants and used as-is. Your inspiration adds a whole new dimension to what to do with the short pieces. Thank you for showing us your anvil and the wood base.

Regards,

Paul Jones

[Carlos B]

Very nice job Tuomas. I have a 6' section of rail in storage waiting for me to cut some projects out of it. For an anvil I am toying with the idea of a 2' long double horn anvil. My question is did you heat treat it and what was the procedure you used? If not how is it holding up? If you addressed this in the video, my apology,my connection is to slow for video.

[nshop]

That's a ton of work. It looks great!

[the artfull-codger]

Hi.

I wanted to have small anvil.
Made it from railroadtrack with angle grinder.
Used 2mm cut off wheels, 8mm grinding wheel and 80grit flap wheel for shaping. Removed the rust with steel brush.

That's fantastic, I roughed out 2 lengths of railway from a long piece of line to make anvils myself [it was holding the joists up in our cottage!!] I removed it & put in new joists, luckily the thieving scrap men left it when they cleaned me out of £2000 s worth of foundry equipment, too heavy to nick, I'm going to make mine now thanks for the video.

[Toolmaker51]

RR track is tough material, even with penetration of work hardened layers. In this size & proportion, I'd think judicious use of hammer 28-32 ounce max wouldn't tax the shaping or polish.
I have one piece sized much the same, in original contour. Often tempted to make it more anvil-like, commencing by milling new profile. Hesitant what results under a high-speed endmill would attain.
Tuomas, the profile you have created By HAND is really perfection of a full size example. 1000% beyond an import too; mere cast-iron clump, no resonance, or attention paid to a proper horn.
No need to name it. Already known as Pennsylvania Short Line, in honor of Monopoly game; property and token.

[Frank S]

First off I want to say nice job you have a well formed horn proportionately shaped not too sharp of a bick the step is pronounced the table could be a bit more pronounced but not all anvils have a table, Hardie holes and pritchels are not always present either the Heel is a littloe un pronounced but that would be a personal preference to its shape by the maker as well Some anvils have no heel at all where the rear of the face goes straight down to the waist, the waist on your anvil just shouts look at me I'm bold and strong. Obviously with RR iron anvils the feet are always perfect more akin to being an elephant's foot on a a small animal it covers the ground it is standing on and no one can knock it over.
There used to be a lot of controversy over main line RR track to make anvils. Many didn't consider them to be anvils due to the size and slenderness of the web proportionately to the face or the base. However those guys probably do not know the definition of the word anvil. In just about any search you can imagine ( Anvil; a heavy block of metal usually iron or steel faced used to shape metal by hand hammering.
I have any number of large and small solid hunks of hard steel that I frequently use as anvils none of which currently are shaped to any traditional anvil like look. Just like TM51 I roo have a piece or 2 of RR track that I use every couple of days to beat a hunk of steel into submission I have no plans to shape it as I frequently need the full 2 ft length of the face and rarely need the horn shape. There are times though when I consider drilling a pritchel near both ends.
I have been hammering on my piece of iron with a 4 lb for 4 years and have not changed its surface shape at all. RR track is made of High manganese steel over many years of millions of tons of rolling freight being transported on them the crown can become work hardened almost through the entire crown even begin to have stress fractures and flake off in huge chunks. If one gets a remnant piece of RR track that was removed from an old main line the surface can be so hard it is nearly impossible to machine whit anything other than a grinder if the track was a short cut off of a new section then it will still be machinable but depending on which mill it came out of and why it was cut out it could have Damascus like qualities with some very hard spots, think of old bed rails some can be drilled anywhere along the rail while others will dull the best colbalt bits you can throw at them.

[Tuomas]

Tomas,

I have several short sections of railroad track picked up as remnants and used as-is. Your inspiration adds a whole new dimension to what to do with the short pieces. Thank you for showing us your anvil and the wood base.

Regards,

Paul Jones

Thank you Paul.