Saw a guy at a state fair demo fix a cracked anvil face with a weird welding trick

I was at the Iowa State Fair last month watching this old timer do a blacksmith demo. He had this cracked anvil and he used a torch to heat it up then hammered in a piece of tool steel, no fancy fillers. Has anyone tried that method or know what it's called?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark_hernandez121mo ago

I had a similar crack on an anvil I picked up from a farm auction a few years back. My neighbor who's been welding since the 70s showed me a trick where you preheat the area with a torch until it's almost glowing, then you take a piece of high carbon steel and hammer it right into the crack while it's still hot. It's called forge welding or something like that, and it actually creates a bond without needing any rod or filler material. I had to go slow and reheat a few times to get it to stick, but that anvil is still going strong in my shop today. Just make sure you clean out the crack real good before you start, any dirt or rust will ruin the whole deal.

christopher_west11mo ago

Man I tried something real similar on an old anvil I got from a scrapyard years ago. I cleaned out the crack with a wire brush and some acetone, then did the torch preheat thing just like you said, and it took a couple tries but that repair has held up through all kinds of abuse.

oliver52329d ago

Honestly, that forge welding trick you mentioned sounds next level. It makes sense why it bonds so well when you think about it - you're basically fusing the metal together at a molecular level instead of just filling a gap. I've always been a little scared to try it myself because I feel like if you don't get the temperature exactly right, you'll just end up with a mess. But hearing that you and your neighbor got it to work on farm auction anvils that are probably beat to hell is pretty encouraging. Might have to give that a shot on an old farrier's rasp I've been sitting on instead of just tossing it.