Forklift post anvil

K

Kevin Powers

Joined
Jul 23, 2015
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411
I got a forklift tine today, my buddy can get me all of the tines I could ever want. Now I have complete access to a full welding and fabrication shop. None of this will cost me anything but time while I keep searching for a real anvil.
Would you weld multiple sections together or would you just throw one into a pipe filled with concrete and call it a day?
Would you hardface the face of it? The tine I got is 5"x2.5". I cut it into manageable 24" and 26" pieces today.
I know these are all typical questions that have been answered a bajillion times but I am a professional welder that is used to welding heavy steel and I already have the hardface rod.
The score. Don't know what I'm going to do with the dozer plate but it's here anyways.
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The manageable pieces
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Thinking of welding the pieces together and hard facing the top with alloy hardfacing rod.
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Those forks are rather tough anyway and some use them as is . Better to pre-heat and post heat if you weld.
Some make a 4140 post without HT. You could also use a bunch of bolts to put together the two ,then weld up near the top then hardface.The chance is that the forks are 4140 for a guess.
 
mete said:
Those forks are rather tough anyway and some use them as is . Better to pre-heat and post heat if you weld.
Some make a 4140 post without HT. You could also use a bunch of bolts to put together the two ,then weld up near the top then hardface.The chance is that the forks are 4140 for a guess.
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Yeah the plan is to V-groove the sides, preheat, Dual-shield, post heat, hard face. Then put it in a pipe filled with concrete
 
Kevin Powers said:
Yeah the plan is to V-groove the sides, preheat, Dual-shield, post heat, hard face. Then put it in a pipe filled with concrete
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Shoot Kevin, it seems like you have it well planned brother. Whatever you do my only input is pay attention to the end height you will end up with from your assembly.

Nice to have that supply of forks!!
 
Fish30114 said:
Shoot Kevin, it seems like you have it well planned brother. Whatever you do my only input is pay attention to the end height you will end up with from your assembly.

Nice to have that supply of forks!!
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Thats a good point. And I might suggest a heavy wooden base over sinking in concrete. The little bit of rebound you get from wood is nice to have
. At least in my experience it limits fatigue
 
I used fork lift fork for the dies on a homebuilt power hammer. They were very tough and held up very well. I'm sure they will work well for an anvil.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
Thats a good point. And I might suggest a heavy wooden base over sinking in concrete. The little bit of rebound you get from wood is nice to have
. At least in my experience it limits fatigue
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Kinda too late
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I could also wedge it in place and fill with sand. Might make it easier when I have to move.
 
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Sice your a welder Id go with the stack and weld idea, hardfacing is not required with those but again if you got and clearly you have the knowledge to use them right I say fire away..Which hardfacing rod are you gonna use? I like some of the stoody and wear hard rods..
 
Kentucky said:
Sice your a welder Id go with the stack and weld idea, hardfacing is not required with those but again if you got and clearly you have the knowledge to use them right I say fire away..Which hardfacing rod are you gonna use? I like some of the stoody and wear hard rods..
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We have some stoody and some sticks of bohler. The bohler is tig rod that gets up to like 53-58 HRC I think. I'd have to look at the classification of each. If I weld the 2 together I would definitely hardface the top so that it would be a uniform surface. Not sure which route exactly I'm going to take yet. We shall see. I also contacted my buddy that gave me the fork and he's going to collect some cable for me too. Can't wait to start forging.
 
I would second the wood. Good anvils are good in large part because of rebound, and a good wood base or stump helps with that. I think the sand idea is the worst way to go. It will absorb the shock and kill all of your rebound. Maybe you could cut and fit wood blocks, end grain up, inside your pipe to get the right height on your anvil face.
 
A sand-filled tube isn't a problem so long as your anvil has a connection to the earth. A lot of very good smiths have their anvils on sand boxes, and it works just fine. Really great for getting rid of that high-pitched ring, too.

You just need to make sure there's a steel plate between the anvil and the sand, unless your tine anvil is long enough to reach down to the ground. In that case, the sand is just acting as a support and sound-dampener. With some wood wedges to keep the anvil steady, the sand-filled tube would work wonderfully.

Fixing it in cement will certainly work, too. The whole contraption isn't so large and ungainly that you can't load it up on a hand truck to move it around the shop or load it into the back of your rig.

Hard-facing rod needs to be impact resistant, not abrasion resistant. Pre-heat, post-heat, grind flat and get to hammering. I'd be really tempted to not bother hard-facing the entire top since the tine alloy is sure to be some good stuff. I really don't think you'd see any difference in wear if you just cover the seam with HF rod. As a human, I really doubt it's possible to hammer enough to see any appreciable wear on that anvil! :D
 
Dual shield welded the pieces together, left one piece a little longer to use as filler for the face seam as I wanted to see how this would work without hardfacing. Tig Welded the face and it seems really nice. Smoothed out the face enough for a little bearing test. I only have a 3/8" bearing so it is what it is. I may steal the idea of welding a square tube to the side to use as a hardy.
[video=youtube_share;NYgEdN-qLNw]http://youtu.be/NYgEdN-qLNw[/video]
 
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Totally had a brain fart and the square would fit the circle. Beveled the square edges off with the torch track cutter and poured concrete today. I can't wait to really try the thing out. Been smacking it with a hammer cause I still gotta dress and polish the face. It seems to be really solid with good rebound to me. I weighed the forklift pieces yesterday, 146lbs and the stand weighed 65lbs. I'll weigh the whole assembly tomorrow after the concrete sets up a bit.
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Looks good as it is.
A forklift blade is quite enough to forge upon.
Hardfacing is silly. Expensive energy & material wise plus extra work to flatten it out by grinder or mill.
 
That's actually a pretty good bladesmithing setup in the spirit of Tai Goo and Tim Lively. Looking forward to your blades. :)
 
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