Can you forge weld on a faceplate to the harbor freight anvil? th-cam.com/video/sLzq8WShJXM/w-d-xo.html This is the latest video in this series... You don't want to miss it!
From a profession welder standpoint; there are rods designed specifically for hard surfacing underlayment (buttering layer) such as “tensilweld” made by Washington alloy. This particular filler metal is an excellent all-around maintenance rod and is essentially a high tensile strength 312 stainless which helps tremendously with porosity in cast materials. That is what I use for my anvil repair when I need to replace horns, heels, & repair/replace faces.
Nice, I only weld a lot for my job, not certified or anything, as not needed, I was thinking and mentioned, either 309, or 6010, etc in that series, then hardface. Just out of experience.
@@Plastikdoom 309 would be a much better choice rather than 6010/etc due to its ductility by nature along with the added silicon in most stainless filler metals helping the porosity issues that are inherent from castings.
That was fun! That being said, anvils way back when were cast iron with a forge welded hardened steel face. So this isn't THAT much of a surprise. If you take a cast iron base with a hardened steel face you'll get a pretty lively anvil.
Your are thinking of wrought iron (iron with hardly any carbon) with forge welded steel faces, besides Fisher anvils pretty much every anvil before 1900 was forged wrought iron with a steel face. I have owned a few from the early 1700s which are solely wrought iron with no hardened steel face.
@@connorlee7840 right. I do not own a cast anvil. They’re all wrought with steel work surface. The softer iron of the table and horn allow hot cutting without damaging tool.🙂
Can't argue with results. I really enjoy this experimental style of video. And the sped up footage of you laying those stick weld beads is strangely addicting. Thanks Roy and have a wonderful New Year.
Thanks for taking the time to experiment with various options. Great video as it looks like you have demonstrated a viable solution if it holds up to forging on it.
Wow, great information. I have a HF anvil. And another similar type cast anvil. I use them for general workshop efforts and save my larger antique anvils for smithing work. I’ll give this go to see how it works on mine. Thanks!
Great job Roy! For not being a pro welder, I believe you have come up with at least one "Reasonable and viable solution", for a lot of people out there on a tight budget. best wishes from a welder.
The process of welding with a non hard face rod first is called padding. Hard face rods ends up check cracking and padding the parent material can prevent cracking in the parent material.
Im not usually one to make a comment, but I have been very intrigued by your efforts to tackle the harbor frieght anvil and make it usable. I dont know much, but I do know that forge welding a hardenable steel onto the anvil body was tradition. Would love to see how you would do that and how well that would work. And if it doesn't work, a bonus clip of trying explosion welding might make for some great entertainment!!! Thank you for helping us out!
I've done a little bit of welding in my life and man, I do not envy you with getting rid of all that slag. Always had a rough time getting it out of the edges of the weld.
I took a 1/2” hardened tool steel plate and liquid nailed it to my Harbor Fright anvil and it actually works well except a little more bounce than I like!
that bounce is to be expected your basically putting adhesive silicone under your strike face your going to get a ton of bounce and if you hit it on the edge you might start to get separation which can be bad if your working a piece so just be careful liquid nails is not a permanent way to bond that stay safe and check it after every use oh i would also state that epoxy is not even an option too brittle while jb weld or other chemical welding adhesives might work they are probably not going to be the best
@@ferrofeles2063 I knew that using liquid nail would give me more bounce than I wanted, but I didn’t want to weld it so that I had options in the future. Thanks for the comments and advice.
I just got my forge set up, haven't made any video with it yet. Im new, only have a few vids so far. thank you for you faith and teachings. I have what I this=ck is the 112 pound Peter Wright anvil, boy does it need resurfacing bad, but I haventyet because its old an I don't want to ruin it. Well, I'm going to try it. Thank you againn for the inspiration.
Be really sure first... You can always weld something to It but not so easily remove something that's attached.. glad to inspire And thank you for watching
Hey... Harbor Freight... LISTEN UP!!! This gentlman did it in a hobby shop - your factories can do it overseas for $2 a pound in welding rods and and one man hour of work...offer it as a different model for what, $50 more? Well worth it.
I'm sure it will crack with some real hits on it. The reason why I say that is you didn't preheat the anvil before you welded on it. When you weld cast iron you need to pre heat it or it will break. I've done A lot of cast iron welding with ni rod 55 and 99
This is a big plus. I gave a big negative response to the attempt to surface harden since of the brittleness of gray and white cast iron. I included an article of a company that converts white cast iron into Malleable cast iron that is far less brittle. I suspect that the annealing process for white cast iron would work for gray cast iron. If I remember need to heat the casting to 400C for a few hours and then let the casting slow cool. This change the crystal structure of the metal.
I'm a retired professional welder. A word of caution about hard facing. Don't put on over 1/8 inch or it will chip off. It's just the nature of hard facing.
If you treat it like cast iron and pre heat it and post heat, or just get a bunch of heat into it before welding, you’ll get good results. Work at a paper mill and the chip yard/hog fuel boiler equipment receives a ton of wear on drag chains, screw conveyors, and I’ve personally built up more then 1/8” with good results.
@@678friedbed This is too true. I see sooooo many "professionals" that acquire a title either educational or employment based.... and never progress. Getting the credentials and titles is just a starting point - it is what you do with the opportunities that those things (title/creds) afford you that really matters.
@@678friedbed Nor, do they know everything. I've been a welder/fabricator for 32 years, I still learn new things everyday. Maximum 1/8" is what most rod manufacturers suggest.
@@jong2359 It's what you learn from experience that becomes wisdom. 32+ years of building everything from utility trailers, to gas and oil pipelines, to nuclear power plants. That piece of paper just got me started, I learned to weld and fit on the job.
That is reassuring to see. I got ahold of an old Mouse hole anvil from a mechanics shop where i live. 142lbs but the harden face was hit with a cutting torch and it began to separate and rust. I took it to my work shop and cut as much of the damaged areas out, and began to butter some 11018 rod over the areas to make a good surface to put the hard surfacing rod on. I havent gotten around to finishing it yet, but to see that it does infact work makes be belive that ill have it in working order, im sure it will still be a dead ringer, as i think at one point in its life it was in a huge fire as while cleaning it up i caught some fractures and started to fill them in. But heres to high hopes that i can get it atleast useable again.
Oddly many smiths don't study welding nearly enough. Specialty fillers and weld filler materials in general are highly advanced technology. Welding fora are a good place to learn about them. Stoody, MG and other makers have fillers for nearly every task and being able to repair or upgrade anvils is quite handy. There are also abrasives for every task (Walter, Norton and 3M are rightly famous). Crown Alloys sell the 44-40 cast iron repair MIG wire (requires argon gas) which is outstanding. It can even repair installed exhaust manifolds per aametalmasters Weldingweb and other threads which show pics. Every metalworker should have welding capability. If you want serious amps the old transformer industrial machines can be gotten cheap (because they're heavy, scaffolding casters and an angle base solve that if ya get one without a cart) and their high OCV makes them a joy to use.
That's a good idea, but you can also buy a piece of bar stock the size you want from a steel shop, and maybe if they have cones get one and weld it on. I have a piece of 2x8" flat bar that I use, but to be honest my Harbor Freight anvil worked ok. I hammered out a sword and several knives on it. The difference isn't huge.
I guess my only question is how much does 2 lbs of weld metal cost in terms of rods used, can that be recouped by buying an anvil that’s just that much more expensive than the harbor freight anvil. All in all very cool though
It's just a waste of time. I make 43 bucks an hour. Spending 3-4 hours making a garbage looking anvil isn't worth my time or materials. That being said, if you're a poor smuck with no education or possibility of working anything beyond flipping burgers... by all means waste the time.
@@MrGregggleziii sometimes the journey is just as enjoyable as the destination. You can see it as a waste of effort, but for me the satisfaction of working on a project like this is enough for me to enjoy it. But seriously, how small is your ego that you need to brag about your hourly wage to random people. What are you compensating for, did you loose your bathroom tweezers and now your boyfriend is mad that you keep soaking the toilet seat?
I would say it's perfect in a pinch. If you don't have access to a better anvil or on a job with limited resources then It will work beautifully. The real test would be put it through an honest days work and see what it looks like at the end of the week. You could also resurface the entire deck with a mild to hardened steele plate sandwich. The mild steel would act as a cushion for the hardened steel and give the cast iron base a little protection. Just a thought.
Haha you actually have the best harbor freight anvil out there now lol.. I don't think I'd go through all that trouble but man that's a nice rebound.. now thinking about it, harding it like that would make it a nice light travel anvil.. maybe that one would be a good giveaway/bid anvil once you done testing it
@@ChristCenteredIronworks EXACTLY!!! Lol thanks Roy, if I’m being honest. I’ve got one of these and they suck, BUT!! I make a living using it so 🤷♂️ I know, I’d have to work less with a good one but in Kentucky most people want the anvils for yard decorations 😢
👍🏼not bad ! I don't know if it's possible but you can also try getting hardened steel plate and welding it to the surface of it and try that out to see if it's any better. I've heard from people that's the best option 🤷 because you can pick the exact hardening of the plate steel and thickness to your liking.
ive seen someone do that and they ended up with an anvil worse than the starting anvil because their was a gap between the top of the harbour freight anvil and the hardened plate. a hardened steel plate would have given equally Good results.
You’d have to forge weld the whole plate to the anvil face, or you get a completely dead anvilive seen people try it, and don’t remember the channel, but years ago someone took the time to forge weld a plate on, then clean it up, rough, then anneal, harden, and temper it, great results, but definitely for the cost and time, the equipment you’d need, you’d already have at least one good anvil, and likely a bunch, so it’d be a net loss, unless you’re trying to make good ones, out of garbage, and think you can make them fast enough, to justify doing it and selling them. At that rate though, you’d probably have to cycle through as many as you could in a day, on just forge welding, then have people who could anneal and harden them as you welded more, etc. but they’d still cost a lot, so people could just buy good ones for slightly more….maybe even less.
@@Plastikdoom on the price of anvils $350-400 ballpark at the low end for a 70 pounder Not including shipping. So unless you have the tools I would not do the plate way. but the stick weld way. It would be at or less than buying a new one if you started from scratch even then it kind of a win. you now have a welder and anvil. On larger anvil this would be a win. As the start at $800 and up.
@@blackgriffinxx yeah for sure, I was saying for forge welding the plate on, not worth it, as it’ll be same cost or more with your labor, materials. And that’s even with big trip hammers, want to try to do it by hand? Sure it’s possible, but will suck, haha.
thats got quite a bounce after hardfacing, looks like quite a bit of effort into it though, and that laugh its like santa on christmas made me laugh. and hope you have a good new year and joyous rest of the christmas season, of which there are 12 days.
Kinda surprised the 6013 made a decent enough weld to be a filler layer…hmm. Especially without heating the cast. Wonder how well some 309 would do with a preheat, I’ve definitely had to weld ductile with 309 to stainless, or carbon, or other ductile, and it worked just fine. Then run it over with 7018, then hardface? Could probably double layer then with no issues.
@@ChristCenteredIronworks ahh, ok, no worries, was just curious as to how it managed to work well enough on that much cast, thinner stuff will weld kinda decent without it, if you don’t need a lot of strength. Great results though, I have one of those anvils I got awhile back, and thought about doing that, might actually do it now, any improvement to it would be far better than they come.
@@huckstirred7112 yeah, it would bond better and let the 60 or 70 series really weld great. Also figured you’d end up more like an alloyed steel layer on top, as it’ll burn out some of the carbon and mix it all together. Taking out some of the brittleness. Just from basic experience of getting into blacksmithing years ago, and lots of welding for my current job, on dirty crap metals, the old existing stuff on dairy farms, we install and maintain pumps and equipment on them. And before that just shop class and welding on farms growing up.
Would have thought before you started welding on it you would have preheated the anvil. Burn some of that surface and near surface junk off, and 60 series welding rods are cellulose type rods. An handle burn through garage, trash, etc,,, 70 series welding rods want a very clean surface to stick too.
The cost of a Harbor Freight anvil the welding rods the grinding disc and time when it be better then just go by a good a start with just curious what do you think.
So theoretically, if you have a cast iron vice with an anvil on it, it would DEFINITELY be worth it to harden that due to it not being a large surface?
So I guess the biggest question I have is; since the layer of hardened metal is quite thin, after actually forging on it for some time, would the work start to temper the hardened surface? Thinner metal heats up a lot quicker. Would be interesting to see a test where you do a significant amount of forging on this anvil, then do the ball bearing test again.
Assuming the weld layer was fused well I wouldn't expect an issue as it is really all one piece of metal, just a layer of a different type, so should dissipate heat well into the body of the anvil. If it was a sheet of hard steel sitting on top of the cast anvil, then I could see there being issues
I have an old ACME 75# which is similar in construction. An Homish blacksmith removed the top and rewelded it to the base because it was separated in spots. Only charged me $30.00. Then a machinist charged $100.00 to remove all of the cold chisel marks all over the top surface and the horn which someone had used to cut material. Probably could have done the same with a grinder, but oh well, I have a fairly decent anvil now.
I had a friend here where I live who did a good deal of forging and it was his dream to have this one specific type of Italian anvil which seemed to be something of a rarity, according to him. On and off, for years, he would speak longingly of it and even had a hickory stump doing nothing in the shop more than growing more obdurate with the passage of time. One day it happened. When I passed his door, I heard a new ring than what was used to hearing. Inside, a more woeful picture of a human, I've never seen. He had mounted the wonder chunk at precisely the right height for his comfort, judging from the layer of sawdust covering the area and he stood forlornly staring at it. He didn't answer when I called his name and I started to worry a bit. I heaved a chunk of anthracite at his boot and he noticed me. "Why the long face?" Long story short, he said that this anvil was everything that he had always hoped it would be but that it Rockwelled out at such a high number that it had almost deafened him from the extremely high ring tone every time he dropped a hammer on the short project that he had smacked into shape since he had gotten it. To prove it, he dropped a 2 1/2 lb. hammer on it and, I swear, it sounded as pure a note as any castrato or coloratura ever broke glass with. He was going to repeat it, but I stopped him and led him outside and walked him around until he broke out of his funk. He sold it again, making more profit than was decent, to someone who was unaware of anything but the reputation. Offhand, as a machinist, that thing had to come in at R-62 or so, maybe higher. Overall, he didn't think much of my gift of a set of matching rubber and lead hammers.
My work has an anvil that naturally rings like a bell, hanging some weights on a hook from the hardy or pritchel hole and adding strong magnets under the horn when combined make the sound manageable.
my old vice you can beat the hell out of it and it dont ding or dent anywhere , i got it the way it is and someone welded the heck out of it at some point and then ground down , all the faces are clean n true but there is a bunch of weld that wasnt ground down totally on the places you dont use . im curious if they "hardfaced" it like this ? i got a new vice and that thing is super soft , miss with the hammer and puts a nice ding in it , and its sloppy , it took maybe a summer on the new one to mess up the jaws so it wont close flat n true anymore , the old one is tight n true ! way better .
I question the longer term viability of so thin a layer of hard face material. About 30 years ago I had some hammer dies faced with a specialty material which I no longer recall, but it was fairly exotic and made for the sort of application to which I was going to put it. The dies failed in minutes due to the lack of sufficient thickness, which was about 1/4" on a set of 4140 hammer dies. One pound of hard face rods over that large an area isn't going to yield a very thick layer. It will be interesting to see how much use this will stand.
Excellent. While I have a good anvil in the forge area, I have an old harbor freight anvil in the fab shop. I'm going to give that a try. I have some old 7018 that I need to use up, I'm wondering if that would make a good base layer.
Great content. I have a question, if you don't mind: You went with the Stoody Self-Hardening rod for this, even though the general recommendation is to use Stoody 2110/1105. Have you been happy with this rod in this application? (re: hardness, durability to impact) I'm looking at different hardfacing rods to use on my own anvil, and I can see why you chose this one- it does seem to have the sort of attributes you'd want for an anvil face. My situation is a bit different though- rather than surfacing a cast iron anvil, I will be surfacing an anvil I made myself out of A36 plate. Would be happy to get any thoughts from you on this Stoody Self-Hardening rod now that you've got some time with it. Thanks!
Great video. What do you recommend for someone starting off that doesn't have a lot of money to shell out for a good anvil or have the rods to harden a HF anvil?
About $37 in welding rods and $20!in grinding disc but that's because I had to buy some new And didn't have them on hand... So $69 for the anvil + $37+$20 = $126 if you bought everything new
I recently picked up two anvils which are in very bad condition , a 50lb and a 350lb both are old and both have a hard surface. I started work on the smaller grinding though the rust and scares. I have the small anvil back to bright metal but there is a dip in the centre of the surface of about 1/8th inch and a few deep scars where the rust penetrated deeper . Would you recommend hard surfacing ? Should I fill the dip or the entire surface? I would appreciate any advice, the large anvil is in a similar condition and I'd like to get my method sorted out before I start on it.
For what you’ve got in that for time and money, you could buy a piece of 1050 round bar that’s like 8” diameter and 4” thick, heat treat it and be pretty well off. It’s exactly what I use, cost me $50 from a scrap yard and it’s not a polished turd like that cast garbage is. My issue with that hard faced cast iron is safety. That could cause any number of issues that wouldn’t be visible, and would likely go unnoticed until your hammer shatters a corner off the thing and you’re left digging chinesium anvil bits out of your neck with needle nose pliers for the next friggin week.
Hi, great video! I'm just curious, not counting your time what was the added costs of the welding rods you used? Just a round number would be sufficient. I am starting to learn with a HF anvil.
@@ChristCenteredIronworks gray iron does not crack very easily but the weld I think your right on the weld it may also separate try it on a small piece
Oh, yeah, I've done this before. I imagine using 6013 wouldn't be a bad rod to start with since it's meant as a deep penetrating rod for dirty materials. Might follow up with some 7018 or 7014 before going on to the hardface. I welded mine with MIG (including hardfacing MIG wire), and it welded just fine, so I don't think a special cast iron rod is completely necessary.
6013 is a rutile coated electrode.... shallow penetrating low ductility. Low penetrating welds helps to reduce dilution with the parent metal. There are two SMAW electrodes rated as deep penetrating... 6010 and 6011, both cellulose coated.
Just out of curiosity, you call it cast iron, are you sure it's not cast steel? 6013 usually does not do well on cast iron but does well on cast steel. I love the experiment. Did you use Stoody 2110 (base) and Stoody 1105 or did you actually use the Stoody Self hardening Hardfacing rod in the Airgas link? Thanks for doing this, I think it helps a lot of people see what happens when you make changes. I also did not expect to see those results
Can you forge weld on a faceplate to the harbor freight anvil? th-cam.com/video/sLzq8WShJXM/w-d-xo.html This is the latest video in this series... You don't want to miss it!
Godbless you and thanks for always dropping some wisdom.
From a profession welder standpoint; there are rods designed specifically for hard surfacing underlayment (buttering layer) such as “tensilweld” made by Washington alloy. This particular filler metal is an excellent all-around maintenance rod and is essentially a high tensile strength 312 stainless which helps tremendously with porosity in cast materials. That is what I use for my anvil repair when I need to replace horns, heels, & repair/replace faces.
Nice, I only weld a lot for my job, not certified or anything, as not needed, I was thinking and mentioned, either 309, or 6010, etc in that series, then hardface. Just out of experience.
@@Plastikdoom 309 would be a much better choice rather than 6010/etc due to its ductility by nature along with the added silicon in most stainless filler metals helping the porosity issues that are inherent from castings.
I would like to see you test a harbor freight anvil with another piece of high quality metal welded to the face of it.
Coming soon stay tuned 😊
@@ChristCenteredIronworks my thoughts as well. Interested in the out come. Thank you
That was my thoughts too, also would different thickness of high quality steel welded to the top/face of a harbor freight anvil make difference?
That was fun! That being said, anvils way back when were cast iron with a forge welded hardened steel face. So this isn't THAT much of a surprise. If you take a cast iron base with a hardened steel face you'll get a pretty lively anvil.
Your are thinking of wrought iron (iron with hardly any carbon) with forge welded steel faces, besides Fisher anvils pretty much every anvil before 1900 was forged wrought iron with a steel face. I have owned a few from the early 1700s which are solely wrought iron with no hardened steel face.
@@connorlee7840 right. I do not own a cast anvil. They’re all wrought with steel work surface. The softer iron of the table and horn allow hot cutting without damaging tool.🙂
Wow, didn't realize hard facing rods got that hard. I thought they were only in the 30-40 range.
Can't argue with results. I really enjoy this experimental style of video. And the sped up footage of you laying those stick weld beads is strangely addicting. Thanks Roy and have a wonderful New Year.
Thank you Glen and happy New year too 🥳
This is great Roy! Certainly a way to get started without going broke.
Thanks for taking the time to experiment with various options. Great video as it looks like you have demonstrated a viable solution if it holds up to forging on it.
Thank you for watching
Wow, great information. I have a HF anvil. And another similar type cast anvil. I use them for general workshop efforts and save my larger antique anvils for smithing work. I’ll give this go to see how it works on mine. Thanks!
Great job Roy! For not being a pro welder, I believe you have come up with at least one "Reasonable and viable solution", for a lot of people out there on a tight budget.
best wishes from a welder.
Thank you for that encouragement 😊 happy New year 🎉
The process of welding with a non hard face rod first is called padding. Hard face rods ends up check cracking and padding the parent material can prevent cracking in the parent material.
Thank you for the definition 😊 again not a professional welder I'm just a humble blacksmith and fabricator...
Im not usually one to make a comment, but I have been very intrigued by your efforts to tackle the harbor frieght anvil and make it usable. I dont know much, but I do know that forge welding a hardenable steel onto the anvil body was tradition. Would love to see how you would do that and how well that would work. And if it doesn't work, a bonus clip of trying explosion welding might make for some great entertainment!!! Thank you for helping us out!
Never heard of explosion welding before 🤔🤔🤔 lol might be a million veiw video 📸
I have really thought about doing this with my anvil. Mild steel plate ASO. Thank you for posting.
I've done a little bit of welding in my life and man, I do not envy you with getting rid of all that slag. Always had a rough time getting it out of the edges of the weld.
I’d never considered hard facing my HF anvil. Looks like I’ll be following suite. Thanks for the video.
I took a 1/2” hardened tool steel plate and liquid nailed it to my Harbor Fright anvil and it actually works well except a little more bounce than I like!
we call that a "chemical weld" ;)
that bounce is to be expected your basically putting adhesive silicone under your strike face your going to get a ton of bounce and if you hit it on the edge you might start to get separation which can be bad if your working a piece so just be careful liquid nails is not a permanent way to bond that stay safe and check it after every use oh i would also state that epoxy is not even an option too brittle while jb weld or other chemical welding adhesives might work they are probably not going to be the best
@@ferrofeles2063 I knew that using liquid nail would give me more bounce than I wanted, but I didn’t want to weld it so that I had options in the future. Thanks for the comments and advice.
I just got my forge set up, haven't made any video with it yet. Im new, only have a few vids so far. thank you for you faith and teachings. I have what I this=ck is the 112 pound Peter Wright anvil, boy does it need resurfacing bad, but I haventyet because its old an I don't want to ruin it. Well, I'm going to try it. Thank you againn for the inspiration.
Be really sure first... You can always weld something to It but not so easily remove something that's attached.. glad to inspire And thank you for watching
Cool idea, enjoyed
Hey... Harbor Freight... LISTEN UP!!! This gentlman did it in a hobby shop - your factories can do it overseas for $2 a pound in welding rods and and one man hour of work...offer it as a different model for what, $50 more? Well worth it.
Well Roy I have to admit that this test was very impressive to say the very least. It was a night and day difference!!! WOW!
I'm sure it will crack with some real hits on it. The reason why I say that is you didn't preheat the anvil before you welded on it. When you weld cast iron you need to pre heat it or it will break. I've done A lot of cast iron welding with ni rod 55 and 99
It was pre heated just lost the footage before editing... But we will see none the less 😃
This is a big plus. I gave a big negative response to the attempt to surface harden since of the brittleness of gray and white cast iron. I included an article of a company that converts white cast iron into Malleable cast iron that is far less brittle. I suspect that the annealing process for white cast iron would work for gray cast iron. If I remember need to heat the casting to 400C for a few hours and then let the casting slow cool. This change the crystal structure of the metal.
I'm a retired professional welder. A word of caution about hard facing. Don't put on over 1/8 inch or it will chip off. It's just the nature of hard facing.
If you treat it like cast iron and pre heat it and post heat, or just get a bunch of heat into it before welding, you’ll get good results. Work at a paper mill and the chip yard/hog fuel boiler equipment receives a ton of wear on drag chains, screw conveyors, and I’ve personally built up more then 1/8” with good results.
@@marv8481 just because someone is a professional doesn't mean they are good.
@@678friedbed This is too true. I see sooooo many "professionals" that acquire a title either educational or employment based.... and never progress. Getting the credentials and titles is just a starting point - it is what you do with the opportunities that those things (title/creds) afford you that really matters.
@@678friedbed Nor, do they know everything. I've been a welder/fabricator for 32 years, I still learn new things everyday. Maximum 1/8" is what most rod manufacturers suggest.
@@jong2359 It's what you learn from experience that becomes wisdom. 32+ years of building everything from utility trailers, to gas and oil pipelines, to nuclear power plants. That piece of paper just got me started, I learned to weld and fit on the job.
That is reassuring to see. I got ahold of an old Mouse hole anvil from a mechanics shop where i live. 142lbs but the harden face was hit with a cutting torch and it began to separate and rust. I took it to my work shop and cut as much of the damaged areas out, and began to butter some 11018 rod over the areas to make a good surface to put the hard surfacing rod on. I havent gotten around to finishing it yet, but to see that it does infact work makes be belive that ill have it in working order, im sure it will still be a dead ringer, as i think at one point in its life it was in a huge fire as while cleaning it up i caught some fractures and started to fill them in. But heres to high hopes that i can get it atleast useable again.
Would it be advantageous to weld plate steel to the anvil, harden to optimal, and use that as the striking surface?
Great joy Roy. Happy New Year!!!
Oddly many smiths don't study welding nearly enough. Specialty fillers and weld filler materials in general are highly advanced technology. Welding fora are a good place to learn about them. Stoody, MG and other makers have fillers for nearly every task and being able to repair or upgrade anvils is quite handy. There are also abrasives for every task (Walter, Norton and 3M are rightly famous). Crown Alloys sell the 44-40 cast iron repair MIG wire (requires argon gas) which is outstanding. It can even repair installed exhaust manifolds per aametalmasters Weldingweb and other threads which show pics. Every metalworker should have welding capability. If you want serious amps the old transformer industrial machines can be gotten cheap (because they're heavy, scaffolding casters and an angle base solve that if ya get one without a cart) and their high OCV makes them a joy to use.
Oh man! Let's see the magic happen!
Glad to see that it worked out not a doubt that it would
Good job thanks.
Nice Roy, my concern is the hard face chipping off! Put it to work and we will see soon enough!
That's a good idea, but you can also buy a piece of bar stock the size you want from a steel shop, and maybe if they have cones
get one and weld it on. I have a piece of 2x8" flat bar that I use, but to be honest my Harbor Freight anvil worked ok. I hammered out a sword and several knives on it.
The difference isn't huge.
I guess my only question is how much does 2 lbs of weld metal cost in terms of rods used, can that be recouped by buying an anvil that’s just that much more expensive than the harbor freight anvil. All in all very cool though
Add in your time, whats that worth?
About $5 for a pound of 6013 rod and the Stoody rod $10 (sold in 10 pound pack for $100)
For me if it is less than about 30% savings for buying a better anvil off the bat, the whole project is worth the experience for me.
It's just a waste of time. I make 43 bucks an hour. Spending 3-4 hours making a garbage looking anvil isn't worth my time or materials. That being said, if you're a poor smuck with no education or possibility of working anything beyond flipping burgers... by all means waste the time.
@@MrGregggleziii sometimes the journey is just as enjoyable as the destination. You can see it as a waste of effort, but for me the satisfaction of working on a project like this is enough for me to enjoy it.
But seriously, how small is your ego that you need to brag about your hourly wage to random people. What are you compensating for, did you loose your bathroom tweezers and now your boyfriend is mad that you keep soaking the toilet seat?
Wow!!! That ball bearing, darn near bounced out of the tube. Happy New Year to you and yours. 🥳🥂🍾🥳
Totally surprised me LoL didn't think it was going to be that good 😊
Fun video, great results! I think the dirty weld layer was the key to making this work!
I would say it's perfect in a pinch. If you don't have access to a better anvil or on a job with limited resources then It will work beautifully. The real test would be put it through an honest days work and see what it looks like at the end of the week. You could also resurface the entire deck with a mild to hardened steele plate sandwich. The mild steel would act as a cushion for the hardened steel and give the cast iron base a little protection. Just a thought.
Pretty darn Amazing Roy!
Well done, looks like a good job and a usable anvil.
I’m curious if hard facing with a OA torch and carburizing flame would give you a better result.
the ideal base material is going to be a nickel rod... it blends both cast iron and air hardening toolsteel very well
I need to try this
Haha you actually have the best harbor freight anvil out there now lol.. I don't think I'd go through all that trouble but man that's a nice rebound.. now thinking about it, harding it like that would make it a nice light travel anvil.. maybe that one would be a good giveaway/bid anvil once you done testing it
Never know 😉 Thank you for watching buddy 👍👍
@@ChristCenteredIronworks Always, you're welcome and Happy new years
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised based on science and history but I am!! Lol
It's Science and shocking all in the same video 😂
@@ChristCenteredIronworks EXACTLY!!! Lol thanks Roy, if I’m being honest. I’ve got one of these and they suck, BUT!! I make a living using it so 🤷♂️ I know, I’d have to work less with a good one but in Kentucky most people want the anvils for yard decorations 😢
👍🏼not bad ! I don't know if it's possible but you can also try getting hardened steel plate and welding it to the surface of it and try that out to see if it's any better. I've heard from people that's the best option 🤷 because you can pick the exact hardening of the plate steel and thickness to your liking.
I think that in question. You could as long as both plate and anvil are very flat
ive seen someone do that and they ended up with an anvil worse than the starting anvil because their was a gap between the top of the harbour freight anvil and the hardened plate. a hardened steel plate would have given equally Good results.
You’d have to forge weld the whole plate to the anvil face, or you get a completely dead anvilive seen people try it, and don’t remember the channel, but years ago someone took the time to forge weld a plate on, then clean it up, rough, then anneal, harden, and temper it, great results, but definitely for the cost and time, the equipment you’d need, you’d already have at least one good anvil, and likely a bunch, so it’d be a net loss, unless you’re trying to make good ones, out of garbage, and think you can make them fast enough, to justify doing it and selling them. At that rate though, you’d probably have to cycle through as many as you could in a day, on just forge welding, then have people who could anneal and harden them as you welded more, etc. but they’d still cost a lot, so people could just buy good ones for slightly more….maybe even less.
@@Plastikdoom on the price of anvils $350-400 ballpark at the low end for a 70 pounder Not including shipping. So unless you have the tools I would not do the plate way. but the stick weld way. It would be at or less than buying a new one if you started from scratch even then it kind of a win. you now have a welder and anvil. On larger anvil this would be a win. As the start at $800 and up.
@@blackgriffinxx yeah for sure, I was saying for forge welding the plate on, not worth it, as it’ll be same cost or more with your labor, materials. And that’s even with big trip hammers, want to try to do it by hand? Sure it’s possible, but will suck, haha.
That's amazing! Gears are turning
Awesome series. Thank you!
thats got quite a bounce after hardfacing, looks like quite a bit of effort into it though, and that laugh its like santa on christmas made me laugh. and hope you have a good new year and joyous rest of the christmas season, of which there are 12 days.
Nice video, I enjoyed it!
Kinda surprised the 6013 made a decent enough weld to be a filler layer…hmm. Especially without heating the cast. Wonder how well some 309 would do with a preheat, I’ve definitely had to weld ductile with 309 to stainless, or carbon, or other ductile, and it worked just fine. Then run it over with 7018, then hardface? Could probably double layer then with no issues.
I did pre heat but some how Lost the footage
As a fellow welder fabricator I agree with you %100 stainless first
@@ChristCenteredIronworks ahh, ok, no worries, was just curious as to how it managed to work well enough on that much cast, thinner stuff will weld kinda decent without it, if you don’t need a lot of strength. Great results though, I have one of those anvils I got awhile back, and thought about doing that, might actually do it now, any improvement to it would be far better than they come.
@@huckstirred7112 yeah, it would bond better and let the 60 or 70 series really weld great. Also figured you’d end up more like an alloyed steel layer on top, as it’ll burn out some of the carbon and mix it all together. Taking out some of the brittleness. Just from basic experience of getting into blacksmithing years ago, and lots of welding for my current job, on dirty crap metals, the old existing stuff on dairy farms, we install and maintain pumps and equipment on them. And before that just shop class and welding on farms growing up.
Ahh I see I'm not the only one who does this.
We just welded a scrap piece of 1” plate to the face.
I will probably do the same to mine.
Still using those rockwell testers that fall way below what is needed?
Hey bud can you do a short with a comparison drop test between the hf anvil and that big beauty it was sitting on would help put it in perspective 👌
Wow. Big surprise
It was for me
Would have thought before you started welding on it you would have preheated the anvil. Burn some of that surface and near surface junk off, and 60 series welding rods are cellulose type rods. An handle burn through garage, trash, etc,,, 70 series welding rods want a very clean surface to stick too.
I did pre heat but unfortunately loss the video footage of that part... Darn cameras LoL
I'm curious if hard facing a railroad track anvil would have any positive effects
Being that the manganese steel work hardens anyway,I would not expend the material and labor.
The cost of a Harbor Freight anvil the welding rods the grinding disc and time when it be better then just go by a good a start with just curious what do you think.
If you already have a hf anvil then this is worth it if not... buy a #66 acciao anvil 🙂
I welded a piece of railroad tie plate to the top of mine
The horn on that anvil is a little big in my opinion.
Do feel free to use a grinder with full vigor 😉😁 happy New year 🎉
So theoretically, if you have a cast iron vice with an anvil on it, it would DEFINITELY be worth it to harden that due to it not being a large surface?
I've used Stoody to repair an old Peter Wright. It worked fine. The only complaint I have is that I remember the rod being about $60 a pound.
Cool !!!
So I guess the biggest question I have is; since the layer of hardened metal is quite thin, after actually forging on it for some time, would the work start to temper the hardened surface? Thinner metal heats up a lot quicker. Would be interesting to see a test where you do a significant amount of forging on this anvil, then do the ball bearing test again.
Assuming the weld layer was fused well I wouldn't expect an issue as it is really all one piece of metal, just a layer of a different type, so should dissipate heat well into the body of the anvil. If it was a sheet of hard steel sitting on top of the cast anvil, then I could see there being issues
I have an old ACME 75# which is similar in construction. An Homish blacksmith removed the top and rewelded it to the base because it was separated in spots. Only charged me $30.00. Then a machinist charged $100.00 to remove all of the cold chisel marks all over the top surface and the horn which someone had used to cut material. Probably could have done the same with a grinder, but oh well, I have a fairly decent anvil now.
By the way yours should perform about the same as mine.
Can you weld a plate of hard steel to the face?
That's on the list ☺️
I had a friend here where I live who did a good deal of forging and it was his dream to have this one specific type of Italian anvil which seemed to be something of a rarity, according to him. On and off, for years, he would speak longingly of it and even had a hickory stump doing nothing in the shop more than growing more obdurate with the passage of time. One day it happened. When I passed his door, I heard a new ring than what was used to hearing. Inside, a more woeful picture of a human, I've never seen. He had mounted the wonder chunk at precisely the right height for his comfort, judging from the layer of sawdust covering the area and he stood forlornly staring at it. He didn't answer when I called his name and I started to worry a bit. I heaved a chunk of anthracite at his boot and he noticed me. "Why the long face?" Long story short, he said that this anvil was everything that he had always hoped it would be but that it Rockwelled out at such a high number that it had almost deafened him from the extremely high ring tone every time he dropped a hammer on the short project that he had smacked into shape since he had gotten it. To prove it, he dropped a 2 1/2 lb. hammer on it and, I swear, it sounded as pure a note as any castrato or coloratura ever broke glass with. He was going to repeat it, but I stopped him and led him outside and walked him around until he broke out of his funk. He sold it again, making more profit than was decent, to someone who was unaware of anything but the reputation. Offhand, as a machinist, that thing had to come in at R-62 or so, maybe higher. Overall, he didn't think much of my gift of a set of matching rubber and lead hammers.
My work has an anvil that naturally rings like a bell, hanging some weights on a hook from the hardy or pritchel hole and adding strong magnets under the horn when combined make the sound manageable.
my old vice you can beat the hell out of it and it dont ding or dent anywhere , i got it the way it is and someone welded the heck out of it at some point and then ground down , all the faces are clean n true but there is a bunch of weld that wasnt ground down totally on the places you dont use . im curious if they "hardfaced" it like this ? i got a new vice and that thing is super soft , miss with the hammer and puts a nice ding in it , and its sloppy , it took maybe a summer on the new one to mess up the jaws so it wont close flat n true anymore , the old one is tight n true ! way better .
Wouldn't doing a butter pass with nickel rod give a better bond to the cast iron?
I question the longer term viability of so thin a layer of hard face material. About 30 years ago I had some hammer dies faced with a specialty material which I no longer recall, but it was fairly exotic and made for the sort of application to which I was going to put it. The dies failed in minutes due to the lack of sufficient thickness, which was about 1/4" on a set of 4140 hammer dies. One pound of hard face rods over that large an area isn't going to yield a very thick layer.
It will be interesting to see how much use this will stand.
That was a neat result. Props for the cool factor. Did you come up with a total cost to do this including materials?
Not yet but will hopefully have costing down in my Big finally video on this series 🙂 so stay tuned !
hey can you use a hard surface welding rod to make a knife blade?
but does the square horn break off as before?
use a stainless rod first , preheat to at least 500 , 7018 second pass then hard face , post heat then cool in vermiculite
What? No hand model? Love the results and looking forward to see the forging.
See Roy the fans are starting to miss me took some time for the family
Great work and video. How much would you charge to do this on a 15 pound Harbor Freight anvil?
Would it be possible to just weld a piece of a.r plate over it?
It's on the list of things to try ☺️ stay tuned
Excellent. While I have a good anvil in the forge area, I have an old harbor freight anvil in the fab shop. I'm going to give that a try. I have some old 7018 that I need to use up, I'm wondering if that would make a good base layer.
Does the hard surfacing cross bead crack
Could you also hard face the horn?
Forge welding a plate of 4140 over the top?
Ok what do you get when you braze a tool steel plate to one of these things?
Coming soon stay tuned 🙂
Great content. I have a question, if you don't mind:
You went with the Stoody Self-Hardening rod for this, even though the general recommendation is to use Stoody 2110/1105.
Have you been happy with this rod in this application? (re: hardness, durability to impact)
I'm looking at different hardfacing rods to use on my own anvil, and I can see why you chose this one- it does seem to have the sort of attributes you'd want for an anvil face. My situation is a bit different though- rather than surfacing a cast iron anvil, I will be surfacing an anvil I made myself out of A36 plate.
Would be happy to get any thoughts from you on this Stoody Self-Hardening rod now that you've got some time with it. Thanks!
Great video. What do you recommend for someone starting off that doesn't have a lot of money to shell out for a good anvil or have the rods to harden a HF anvil?
i use a railroad track piece and it is garbage,if you can get any other big piece o metal that isn't as soft, take it
He has some other videos with amazon anvils that aren't to bad or find your local scrap yard and ask for any chunks of steel
Forklift forks are good, if you can find a bent/broken one
How much in welding rod did it cost to do this?
What was the end cost of that anvil
About $37 in welding rods and $20!in grinding disc but that's because I had to buy some new And didn't have them on hand... So $69 for the anvil + $37+$20 = $126 if you bought everything new
I recently picked up two anvils which are in very bad condition , a 50lb and a 350lb both are old and both have a hard surface. I started work on the smaller grinding though the rust and scares. I have the small anvil back to bright metal but there is a dip in the centre of the surface of about 1/8th inch and a few deep scars where the rust penetrated deeper . Would you recommend hard surfacing ? Should I fill the dip or the entire surface? I would appreciate any advice, the large anvil is in a similar condition and I'd like to get my method sorted out before I start on it.
Yay. It possible
For what you’ve got in that for time and money, you could buy a piece of 1050 round bar that’s like 8” diameter and 4” thick, heat treat it and be pretty well off. It’s exactly what I use, cost me $50 from a scrap yard and it’s not a polished turd like that cast garbage is.
My issue with that hard faced cast iron is safety. That could cause any number of issues that wouldn’t be visible, and would likely go unnoticed until your hammer shatters a corner off the thing and you’re left digging chinesium anvil bits out of your neck with needle nose pliers for the next friggin week.
Hi, great video! I'm just curious, not counting your time what was the added costs of the welding rods you used? Just a round number would be sufficient. I am starting to learn with a HF anvil.
now I wonder if it can be hardened more as you did before, instead, use ice to harden it
For quenching it will harden to 60+ HRC but My guess is that will cause some big cracks to happen 😉
@@ChristCenteredIronworks gray iron does not crack very easily but the weld I think your right on the weld it may also separate try it on a small piece
thanks for the comeback brother it would seem we are in the berth pains now
Oh, yeah, I've done this before.
I imagine using 6013 wouldn't be a bad rod to start with since it's meant as a deep penetrating rod for dirty materials. Might follow up with some 7018 or 7014 before going on to the hardface. I welded mine with MIG (including hardfacing MIG wire), and it welded just fine, so I don't think a special cast iron rod is completely necessary.
6013 is a rutile coated electrode.... shallow penetrating low ductility. Low penetrating welds helps to reduce dilution with the parent metal.
There are two SMAW electrodes rated as deep penetrating... 6010 and 6011, both cellulose coated.
Just out of curiosity, you call it cast iron, are you sure it's not cast steel? 6013 usually does not do well on cast iron but does well on cast steel. I love the experiment. Did you use Stoody 2110 (base) and Stoody 1105 or did you actually use the Stoody Self hardening Hardfacing rod in the Airgas link? Thanks for doing this, I think it helps a lot of people see what happens when you make changes. I also did not expect to see those results
Did you pre heat the anvil before welding
Yes
AWESOME! Did you preheat the anvil before welding? Great series! Sonofagun...you actually can polish a turd LOL
LoL yeah it just takes a lot of elbow grease 🤣... And Yes it was pre heated
Ahhh science 🧪
Yeah, I"m not doing all that. I'll just go find a tractor weight.
Sweet I’m in the first 10
What rebound do you get on olga?
Isn't the anvil actually cast steel?
No this model is cast iron
Why use hard surfacing rod....? 11018 is rod of choice for most folks who rebuild anvils.. Preheat to 350,deposit in short sections.....Grind...
🧂&💡⚒️