Rail anvil - video

[Jon]

Rail anvil. By Home Workshop. 8:15 video:

[roadmantoo]

Rail anvil. By Home Workshop. 8:15 video:

‘OK, I love this idea but I don’t have a shop with $100,000 worth of equipment to build one of these.

[Beserkleyboy]

no, but you probably have a jigsaw and angle grinder and a sander...

[elmer139]

Thank you great Idea. I’m going to give it a try

[Rikk]

‘OK, I love this idea but I don’t have a shop with $100,000 worth of equipment to build one of these.

Don't take this the wrong way, but if you need that much money to complete something as simple as this, you might just be on the wrong website... This site is all about doing a whole lot with very little.

Very nice solution for someone doing smallish work. I like it!

[WmRMeyers]

‘OK, I love this idea but I don’t have a shop with $100,000 worth of equipment to build one of these.

Jigsaw or coping saw to cut the plywood. Any sort of drill to drill the holes. Angle grinder, flap sander on power drill, belt sander, or even a sanding block and some patience to do the shaping of both metal and wood. Hacksaw and a pair of nuts to fit the allthread to cut the allthread, and use one of the abrasive gadgets above to smooth the cut ends. An abrasive hacksaw blade to get though the hard case on the top of the rail and then a regular hacksaw blade and lots of elbow grease to cut the rail, or a cutting wheel on the angle grinder. You could do it for under $100 even buying all new tools, blades, and abrasives. You could also use the edge of a brick or a piece of sandstone to get through the hard case, and do much of the abrading of the metal, and get your costs down from there. I heard a lot of "I can't" there. And as long as you believe that, it's true. If you're standing naked in a swamp with nothing but mud and alligators around it might be true even if you can see all the possibilities around you, but not otherwise. People cut stone for centuries with a piece of soft wire and sand and a bent stick. If it will cut stone, it will cut iron. Open your mind!

OK. End rant!

Bill

[mklotz]

I had to wait until the very end of the video for him to show us why encasing the rail in plywood was a good idea. If he had started off with the visual of mounting the rail upside-down in the wood in order to use the flat, he might have captured more attention. As it was, we had to sit through seemingly endless rail polishing and plywood gluing until he presented the clincher.

It's too bad there isn't some way of running these videos in reverse.

[WmRMeyers]

I had to wait until the very end of the video for him to show us why encasing the rail in plywood was a good idea. If he had started off with the visual of mounting the rail upside-down in the wood in order to use the flat, he might have captured more attention. As it was, we had to sit through seemingly endless rail polishing and plywood gluing until he presented the clincher.

It's too bad there isn't some way of running these videos in reverse.

I have an associate of science degree in audiovisual production, now quite obsolete, and there is a reason I don't do video of what I'm doing in the shop. Critics are everywhere! At least I have an excuse. I was an expert, once upon a time. In making a film when "film" was exactly what it was made on. Back then, computers were either toys or seriously expensive business machines, not household appliances. But yeah, a few minutes at the front of the video would go a long ways to explaining why you needed to get that fancy. I watched it to the end because some schlub dumped a piece of partially cut rail anvil in front of my house one day. Some day, I'll have enough input on what to do to it to make it worth my effort to finish it. I've probably watched a couple of hundred videos on making a railroad track anvil. One guy, who made a good impression on me, mentioned how the thin web of the track made it flex and ring when hammered on, and wasted a lot of energy. I'm lazy, I want all the energy I put into hammering on something to do what I want it to do. He suggested contouring metal stock to bolt on both sides of the ASO to make it stiff enough to not ring. Makes perfect sense to me. But I'm not done gathering info. Maybe my great great great grandchild will finally finish it for me?

Bill

[Frank S]

What I do with these videos is to hover my curser over the little red dot then hold the left mouse button down and drag the dot along the bar If I go slow enough normally my graphics card can keep up with me and show small pictures of the build progress I will sift through a 30 minute video in about 30 seconds and usually get as much out of it as I would have watching the whole thing. if the vid. does show promise I might slide the dot back a little set the play back speed to 2x 1.5 if I want to hear what they are saying watch that short segment then advance to the next promising spot.