How to Hardface an Acciaio Anvil!
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- čas přidán 21. 11. 2022
- In today’s video, I hardface my Acciaio Anvil after I noticed some slight surface cracks in the cast steel on the surface due to mishits from other, more inexperienced people using my anvil. I didn’t want the cracks to propagate so I preheated it to about 400 degrees with a propane torch, ran a layer of 7018, and then a layer of Stoody 21 chromium carbide electrodes. The Stoody rods developed cross check cracks, so I had to grind them out and redo the top with Forney Supercoat 600 rods which are a little softer, but are crack resistant. Next, I remove the bulk with a 7in grinder and then finish it up with a 5in flared cup grinding wheel to get it nice and flat. I re-established the hardy and Pritchel holes with a carbide burr on a dremel.
I am not affiliated with any of these links, they are purely for your benefit:
Articles:
www.hardfacingfty.com/hardfac...
www.hardfaceindustries.com/pdf...
Forney Supercoat 600 rods that worked well: www.amazon.com/Forney-42405-S...
5 inch Flared Cup grinding wheel:
www.amazon.com/Forney-72375-G...
If you want to find a slightly harder but still crack resistant rod, here’s the Stoody catalog:
www.comercialmuro.es/files/ST... - Zábava
Thanks for sharing. I've been mulling over the idea of hardfacing for several weeks now. My situation is a bit different than yours- rather than starting with an existing cast steel anvil, I am in the process of making one by welding together several 12x20" pieces of 1" plate stood up on end. The 1" plate is mystery metal, though I do have a lot of reasons to believe its mild steel: it spark tests like mild steel, and these pieces were originally manufactured to be counterweights or ballast plates for a rooftop hand crane so I would assume they would use the cheapest steel available.
All of my pieces are cut to shape and welded together (several plug welds spread out in the centers affixing each plate to the next in the stack, and all perimeter seams were deeply V-beveled and filled with 7018 rod at high amperage, I preheated everything with a torch prior to welding.
Still have some work to do to complete the body, but I'm trying to decide what to do for the face. Going back and forth on whether to fully faceweld a 1/2" piece of 4140 or 5160 to the top, or hardface it. I'm starting to lean towards hardfacing now, because I don't think I'd be likely to get great results trying to heat-treat the 4140/5160 face once its fully welded to 150lbs of mild steel. Would have to build a big fire in the backyard and build a temp brick oven, and any sort of quench I could attempt would be a shot in the dark.
So now I'm back to reading up on hardfacing rods to try to determine which will work best for my case. A lot of the anvil-relevant info available online pertains to starting with a cast iron base, so I'm not sure whether I would still need a buildup layer. I might do like you did and run a 7018 base. Doesn't seem as if it could hurt, and I've got a ton of it already. Does seem that it would be beneficial to have a layer of HRC ~30 metal in between the mild steel body and the harder face rod.
Thanks again for the content
I believe the particular forney hard face rods that I used are intended for welding right to mild steel.
If what you have are counter weights, there's a chance they are cast so I agree a layer of 7018 definitely couldn't hurt.
One mistake I did make though was only doing 1 layer of hard face. As it melts with the mild steel, the 2 metals dilute and mix up not leaving the top as hard as advertised. Also, by the time you grind it flat, you're taking off a lot of that top layer so I would definitely recommend at least two layers of hard face, but not more than three because you risk surface cracking, if you plan to go that route.
Good luck with your project! Sorry for the late reply.
Yeah, without a good way to heat treat, hardfacing sounds like the right choice…. As long as you can get a good surface on the finished product! Good luck
Thanks for the replies. Good call on the possibility of the counterweights being cast, because they often are, but fortunately mine are hot-rolled A36 plate. I spark-tested them before I brought them home, otherwise I probably would have left them be. Also, after removing the paint they had, I discovered the telltale layer of smooth dark-gray millscale you always see on thick A36 plate. Gave them a little bath in some muriatic acid to take it off, although it probably wasn't necessary.
I'm definitely going with hardfacing over trying to heat-treat a plate face. Just a matter of settling on which rod to try. Blue Demon has a rod (their 450) which looks to have the right characteristics and the price is right, so I may go that route. Will do a layer of overlapping stringers, and then do a 2nd pass filling in all the valleys. Biggest challenge for me lately is just finding the free time!
@@aaronschwingel3330 cool! Good luck!
I would really like to see that in a video if possible, thanks.
I would be curious to know what the hardness was before and what it was after, good video. Thanks.
Me too, I have no good way of measuring unfortunately.
@@BurrowDeeper the reason I decided to resurface it was because the top was very soft and dented very easily. It started to develop surface check cracks, so I ground out the cracks, filled them with 7018 because it's cast steel, and then decided I might as well hardface it while I'm at it. You must have gotten lucky and got a good one- I got a dud.
Hey John, have you done any work on your anvil since posting this, and if so how's the hardface holding up? Curious.
I'm got some more rough smoothing to do on my homemade anvil, but I'm getting close to doing the hardfacing on mine. I bought 10lbs of 1/8" Stoody "Self-Hardening" rod, as it seems to have the right sort of characteristics and has apparently worked alright for the Christ-Centered Ironworks guy.
My current plan is to first preheat the whole anvil with a big propane roofing torch to ~300F, lay down a layer of 7018, grind it all down to a smooth plane, and then lay down the Stoody rod. I may or may not do a second layer of the Stoody, haven't decided. Will see how it's welding after finishing the first layer (how much dilution with the 7018) and also whether I have enough for 2, and then follow my gut. I'm pumped to begin, but I know I will need a big chunk of free time to accomplish it, and free time is hard to come by with the kiddos.
Hi Aaron, no I have not done any work to the anvil since and it's holding up great to a fair amount of forging.
Your plan sounds great but yeah, you will definitely need a big chunk of time.
A few suggestions:
1: You probably don't need to grind down the 7018 layer a ton- it would probably just be a waste of time. Just get any particularly high spots down.
2: don't use hardface rod around the hardy or Pritchett hole because it will be very hard to file or drill unless you have a band file or some carbide burrs.
3: definitely use 2 layers of hardface- by the time you grind it flat, you will have a fairly thin layer and may even have a dead spot. This happened to me but I just haven't had the time to go back and add another layer. Just to give you an idea- I used probably about 3 of the 5 pounds of hardface I bought for one layer and you can see in the video how big it is.
4: it is a LOT of grinding, so take the time to get it at a comfortable height to grind (your wrists will thank you). I would definitely recommend getting something bigger than a 4.5" grinder. I did the majority with a 7" regular grinding disk and then the rest with a 5" cup wheel that I put on a 6" grinder to give it a little more power.
Good luck! Let me know how it goes.
@John Wheels thanks so much for the suggestions! I will take them all into consideration. Very helpful to get some outside input, as there isn't much anvil-specific hardfacing information available online- at least not steel anvil specific.
I wont go crazy trying to get my 7018 perfectly smooth. And based on the coverage you got, I expect my 10lbs should be plenty to give me 2 complete layers of the hardfacing. I think I will run the first layer of stringers out, and then run the 2nd layer in all the valleys of the 1st layer and then grind them down together as one layer. This Stoody rod is supposed to wet out pretty nicely and lay flat, so if I can get the amperage dialed in right hopefully I can keep grinding to a min. Will rough it down with a regular 7" grind wheel, and then I'm thinking I'll try some of the fiber discs. Harbor Freight sells a 7" backing pad for angle grinders and they're supposed to be carrying 7" fiber discs soon as well.
Once I get some more progress, I'll come back and comment again!
Awesome, good luck! For all my abrasives I've had really good luck with benchmark abrasives. They're way cheaper in bulk and they last like 10x longer than harbor freight. I haven't tried their fiber disks but I imagine they're good like the rest of their stuff. I'm not sponsored- just thought I'd try to save you a buck. 😃I'm sure the backing pad from harbor freight is just as good though.
@John Wheels
Made some progress. Getting close now. Burnt down a layer of 7018 and then used a regular grinding wheel to take down the high spots. Then felt like trying out the 7" fiber discs so I threw a 26grit wheel on the backing pad and gave it a go. Holy cow- it's really hard to hold onto, but it worked great. After just a few minutes of running it and holding on for dear life, I had a nice even and semi-smooth plane to lay my hardfacing on. First check with the straight edge was pretty much perfect.
Fiddled around with the settings on my stick welder til I got the hardfacing rod running well on some scrap pieces, with minimal penetration/dilution. Took me a bit over an hour to lay down the first pass, then I came back last night and did a 2nd pass with my stringers running perpendicular to the first layer. I didn't see anyway around putting it on around the hardy/pritchel, so I tried my best to keep it from falling in (with mixed results). Will probably need to pick up a fresh carbide burr for my dremel. All in all things went pretty smoothly, and I still have a good bit of rod left for touching up. Hopefully after work today I can get started on grinding it down. I'm also going to put at least one layer on the top and sides of my round horn.
Awesome! I guess I'll have to try out those fiber disks. Good stuff! Lmk how the grinding goes.