Thanks Branson
Well it will do a small job. Fortunately most of my work is small.
Nobody ever offered me a real anvil, not one. I have seen a lot of them change hands but never to me.
Plowing straight into the earth and rocks will wear regular steel away very quickly, you can imagine.
They weld a special steel to the fronts of loader buckets and backhoe buckets and caterpillar blades, etc.
Its harder, but its mostly 10 times tougher than regular steel.
In time even this wears away.
So once or twice in the life of every large earth moving machine, the old lip is cut off and a new one welded on.
Its a pretty big job. The steel is over an inch thick on a Caterpillar 950 loader. This is a medium/small sized loader with tires about as tall as a man, btw.
Cutting off the old lip and installing a new one took us 1 1/2 days at the mine where I worked. A guy had started it and when I came on shift I worked on it all shift (in between regular duties) and then he finished it up next day.
The old lip was gone in the middle, but short sections along the outside edges had lots of meat left.
The rail is a fairly large size rail. Rails come in lots of sizes. There were several sections of it piled up in back of one of the buildings. Its kind of a trip cutting rail and cutting lip steel. Turning a torch up to a long flame and advancing slow and steady.
I use the little anvil inside my shop and it serves for light duty.
I still need a real anvil for serious work.
Every week I hear of another Peter Wright or Fisher. Some 22 year old newbie just back from a yard sale with another one, sincerely asking me if its any good. Like I have personal experience.
Practically everyone I know back east has 3 or 4 laying around. Todd Hughes won't even buy them anymore unless they are super special and near free, because he has them stacked and piled dangerously high all over the place already.
sigh
yours Scott
