Brag about shit you've found.
Got this lovely bitch for diez dollares gringos, plus half a blown out 50-gallon propane tank and a two foot length of spring steel for another 10. Guy threw in his life story for free. Great day.
>>995537
that a piece of railroad track turned into an anvil?
>>995537
I admire your enthusiasm, but paying too much for scrap steel is nothing to grab about.
>>995549
Brag, rather.
>>995537
>>995549
Like that time my idiot brother paid 50 cents each for circulated centennial quarters because he had never seen the designs on them before. He asked me how much they were worth. His little face was crushed when I told him face value.
>>995545
Yeah, people who don't know any better and have no money do that. They spend 8 hours cutting and grinding it into shape only to have an 'anvil' that has enormous bounce and rings like a bell when you hit it. If they had a decent paying job they could have bought a used anvil for the amount of time they wasted making it. Then they use it a few times, realize its garbage, let it rust in the back of the shop and finally sell it to some schmuck, I mean OP, when they need to free up some space.
>>995554
Stay mad faggot, I'm just happy I've finally got my rig
Found this in the uni dumpster
>>995554
>enormous bounce and rings like a bell
These are indications of a GOOD anvil. It means that the anvil isn't absorbing much energy, so there is more to go towards deformation of the workpiece. Cast iron anvils are quieter, but they take more hammering to get a given result. Railroad tracks are fine for small work with small hammers, where the small mass of the section is still enough to do the job of an anvil.
>>995681
This - mostly.
RR anvils are not inherently shit. But it depends what you're trying to do.
generally speaking I wouldn't want to use an anvil that's less than about 1:25 weight of the hammer (and I'd prefer 1:30, so assuming a 20lb length of track, which is about 18 inches (depending on the track gauge), then a small 1-pound hammer is about the upper limit - but that's fine for small work like knifemaking, and easily enough for jewellery or the likes. I no longer use a RR track anvil, having replaced it with a 30lb no.7 bick iron tinsmith's anvil. That, in a 40lb stump, is more than enough for work knifemaking, which is what I do.
If you're going to be thrashing it with a 8lb sledge, trying to forge huge ingots, then yes, a RR anvil is shit. But then a properly made 20lbs anvil is also shit for that.
the main thing for a RR anvil is that the top should be surfaced flat, to remove the crowning. Do that, and you have a perfectly reasonable flat carbon steel working surface that is going to do the job nicely.
>>995653
>SJS.co.nz
What uni do you go to brah? UC?
>>995681
kekek LITERALLY no lol
>>995537
terrible anvil. lots of pitting which will be transferred into whatever you are working on. not even flat.
>>995708
20 or 30 pounds is a real anvil to you? Anything under 100 pounds is a joke for anything more than fitting horseshoes. I have a 140 pound Peter Wright, and I long for bigger...
>>995681
Rebound is desirable, the light ass piece of track bouncing around is not. Real anvils ring because they are differentially hardened and made from wrought iron with a high carbon steel face. Cast steel, like pretty much any nice modern anvil, can work just fine but lacks the beautiful sound of a forged antique. Yes, they forged them with hammers, by hand. Forge welded the face to the body too. A piece of rail is not even in the same realm as a real anvil. Save your pennies for a bit like an adult and stop fucking around with this bullshit... Seriously, you are doing yourself an immense disservice.
>>995681
Also, cast iron "anvils" are turds, they will shatter and maim you. That you even mentioned them seriously shows you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.
I got this antique hand pump. I'm going to clean it up and get rid of the JD green, use it for landscaping.
>>996572
The base of the pump, and a bell with broken mount. Also a landscape project.
>>996574
Stone I was given today.
>>996576
More stone
>>996579
And the rest of the free materials I've accumulated
>>996581
I'm making a rock patio, and raised flower beds with the stone, in the grassy area.
>>996565
>Rebound is desirable, the light ass piece of track bouncing around is not.
And as solid chunks of hard steel, railroad tracks have high rebound. As the other anon and I said, railroad track sections are suitable for small work of the kind you'd use a small anvil for. What size anvil do you think a jeweler uses?
And since the anvil itself bouncing around depends on how it's mounted, I assumed that the "has enormous bounce" bit I was replying to was the bounce of hammers off the anvil.
>Real anvils ring because
It seems that you don't understand why some objects ring when struck. Ringing has two prerequisites: a material with low dampening of vibration, and a shape that allows strong vibrational resonance. An anvil shape isn't perfect for resonance, but it isn't designed to suppress it, so it comes down to material. Solid steel rings louder than wrought iron (hardness and homogeneity improve reverberation), which rings louder than cast iron (the complex microstructure strongly absorbs vibrations). Inhomogenous materials don't ring as well because the different components have different properties, which disperses vibrations as they cross the boundary.
Steel-faced forged wrought iron was the standard anvil construction in the 19th century, but better modern anvils are typically solid cast steel. You might not prefer their sound, but they do ring louder than a steel faced iron anvil of equal size and shape.
>>996566
>cast iron "anvils"
I mentioned cast iron because >>995554 mentioned bounce and ringing as bad things, and the only anvil material that doesn't bounce or ring appreciably is cast iron. And as you said, it's not a very good material for anvils. But such objects are anvils, which are a class of tool defined by their function, not material. Thousands of years ago, soft metals like bronze were the best material available for anvils, and before that it was stone. Stone is worse than cast iron, but stone anvils are still useful tools for some tasks.
>>995627
>>995554
I'm happy you finally got your rig too. Dont listen to the shitposter. He watched a railroad anvil kill his parents when he was young.
Also my first anvil was a piece of rail, and I love it to bits
>>996572
fucking top find anon
>>999398
>Your'e the bloke
No, but that sounds intriguing. Summary/pics?
>>999393
You are damn straight that's what happened. I'm like Batman that fights shitty anvil shaped objects.
