Welding Tips and Tricks

New guy here, and very little welding experience. Did some MIG in high school and enjoyed it, but never got much time on stick or tig. After graduating, I spent a year or so working with a blacksmith learning what I could about the old ways of working iron, but no modern welding.

I got out of blacksmithing as a hobby and got rid of all my gear years ago. Now I'm regretting that and would like to get back into it. When this anvil fell into my hands, I just couldn't pass it up (especially for the price asked!) Which brings me to where I am now.

As you can see, it's a mess. From what I have been able to find online, it's a Wilkinson brand from Dubley England with a wrought iron body and a hard steel face plate forge-welded on at the foundry. I can't see anything that indicates how much of the face-plate is still there, but I'm suspecting there isn't much. I found a tutorial online that teaches you how to prepare the anvil and what rods to use, but I'm not sure about quantity of rods to purchase or, really, all those little details that a neophyte welder might run into.




In this side shot, you can see what looks like a bead of weld from a previous attempt at repair. Not too pretty, and it looks like maybe the face plate is bent down into the chipped wrought iron body a bit. Maybe an eighth left over?



The tutorial, found here http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/16052-w ... -approach/, states to bring the anvil up to 400° and lay down bead after bead using "Stoody 2110 (or equal) 3/16" rod." Once you've sufficiently built up the face of the anvil, I can bury it in vermiculite till cool and then grind the face to shape.

Sounds real easy! What could possibly go wrong?

So far, as I understand it, I'm going to burn off the paint using my propane weed-burner-of-Doom! Then I'm going to take my angle grinder to it and get rid of that "repair" as well as all the sharp edges around the various bad spots. Once down to good metal, I'm going to heat the entire anvil up to 400° and then start laying down bead until I build up sufficient thickness in what's now the new face plate. I'm thinking a layer measuring .500" thick.

Does that sound right? Sounds relatively easy and a fairly simple project for a new welder to at least get practice making nice beads. I can't really ruin this anvil any more than it already is, can I? It's very round, as is, and it came cheap..... so I don't guess it would be that great a loss if I totally screw the pooch on it. But I'd rather have the project all fleshed out before even trying to weld on it.

How many pounds of rod would you expect to need to weld a half-inch thick layer on top of a 4"x14" anvil table? Is a half-inch too thick? Maybe stick to an eighth? A quarter? When you say "Stoody 2110... or equal" what does that mean? A ten-pound box of Stoody 2110 CTD is a bit pricey, but still not too bad if I only need ten pounds. If I need three boxes, I could practically buy a new anvil for that same money. Is there an alternative hard-facing rod that might be as good or better? Anything I'm not seeing or planning on? Would you consider this too much of a project for a beginner welder?

I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks for your time.

I'd recommend taking a grinder and cutting down to clean wrought iron in that chipped area, as well as the top, and run one pass over the whole thing with a high nickel rod, then use a hardfacing rod to do your buildup. nickel rod is SUPER expensive now, so it's not going to be any cheaper, but I'd feel better about it personally having a nickel barrier layer in there. that stoody 2100 is pretty much top-of-the-line hardfacing/buildup rod. I think it was recommended because it doesn't work harden like some hardfacing rods do.

the 400 degree preheat sounds like a good idea, too. I haven't done any cast welding on anything near that big, but preheat and slow cooling definitely reduces cracking. you might also want to peen your hardfacing welds. I don't know of that's strictly necessary if you use the nickel, but it can't hurt.

I dont know S*** about blacksmithing and I'm not going to pretend too But could you weld on a piece of 1/4 or 1/2 inch plate on top? Im thinking if you got the right alloy and production method it would work great.

Ithink that origir has stated the best possible advice, but if you need to do this on the cheap, you can use 7018 rods.

This is definatly a lower quality method, and i would depend on the weld(s) breaking after a few months on beating and banging on your anvil, but you need to do your own cost benifit analysis to determine what the best decision for your situation is.

I once welded a vice together made out of similer material, with a 6010 root and a few 7018 filler passes, with no pre-heat or slow cooling. It held up pretty good for about 2 months, but after It broke again, it need twice as much work to do it the right way.

So pick your battle, trouble now, or trouble later. Heck, if you don't use it much, it may not be any trouble at all!

best wishes,

-Rick

Thank you, gentlemen, for your thoughts. I'm definitely getting more and more interested in getting this project off the ground.

Ogorir, what does the nickel layer do? I noted that the author of that article mentioned using a nickel layer if the body was cast iron, which is a whole nother animal from wrought iron, but I don't understand what it's supposed to do. Is it like using primer with paint?

How many pounds of rod would you expect to use to create a .5" thick top plate? Will one 10# box do?

Kerm, I'd love to put a section of forklift tine on there, but I can't figure out how to do that without ruining the temper in the tine. Any tool steel face plate would have to be hardened and tempered after being welded in place, that would mean a whole lot of work!

you could say the nickel would be like a primer, yeah. basically, the nickel won't crack with the high carbon content of cast (and I'm pretty sure wrought iron has a higher carbon content than mild steel, too). I think (but I'll have to review my metallurgy here) the nickel doesn't get brittle as it cools, and it must draw out some of the carbon in the heat affected zone, because you can weld cast with nickel with a high success rate. it has to be real crap for it to still crack.

as far as deposition rates go for your hardfacing rod, you'd have to check with the manufacturer. If it were me, I'd do a build up with 7018 or 7024 to basically your desired thickness, then put down a layer of the hardfacing rod, maybe two. I'd guess you'll probably use a rod every 8-12" of weld. figure about 1/4"-3/8" wide bead considering overlap. best case you get 3 passes from a rod and go 1-1/8", so 12.5 rods for one pass. worst case would be around 28. I'd probably figure on going around the perimeter at least once, too, so you can get a nice square edge after grinding. you shouldn't need more than 2 passes of hardfacing. originally, the anvil would've likely been case-hardened anyway.

you should be able to weld that tine on there without taking the temper out of the middle. you might lose a bit near the edges, but if you can find a nice thick one and weld only at the joint between the anvil and the tine, you might be alright. I'd recommend machining the tine and the anvil flat if you go that route before you weld them together. if they don't mate exactly flat, I'd expect after a few months of pounding that the edge welds would crack from the stress of the tine bending to conform to the anvil.

also, I think that stoody hardfacing rod is going to be a hell of a lot harder than the anvil was in the first place. you might, as an interim, put down a layer of nickel, build it up and square it to the shape you want with 7018 or 7024, then use it for a while and see if that is really too soft. you can probably get a bit of hardness out of it by heating the surface red and quenching it, but I have no idea what kind of luck you'll have doing that with that size chunk of iron. maybe preheat with a gas grill, then hit it with the torch(oxy acetylene. propane probably wont be enough)?

anyway, good luck!

Well you picked a heck of a first project. Look for more articles on repairing anvils,ABANA should have some. Post and pre heat, 7018 for a build up and then you want a harder layer on top,stody would work well. But to rebuild the whole face will be alot of time and money. Find another sucker and buy a better anvil. Just a thought. Good Luck!

I know this is an old post, but another way to fix it might be to silver solder a new surface to it?

Was looking for similar information, thanks!