# Forum Home Renovation Metalwork & Welding  Anvil stand

## Marc

With so much RHS I got from my neighbour I decided to make a decent stand for the smaller anvil, also a Peter Wright, marked 206 in the hundredweight system equating to 104 kg.
Base plate is 25mm, legs are the usual 5"x2.5"x1/4" cut at 12.5 degree, a compromise between 15 and 10 that is the range apparently. 
One issue with anvils is the loud ringing, very nice if you do it once, a pita when you are trying to work. Stands can quieten an anvil down substantially if they are bolted to it and if they do not resonate in turn. 
So first a good substantial weld for the legs, then filling the legs with sand and oil then a good anchoring system should do it.   
Two passes at full blast with the 250 amp MIG and 0.9 wire at 18 speed. 
Second leg:   
Third leg. Did not collapse ... good  :Smilie:     
Filling the legs with sand and oil was easy. a bit of sand and a bit of oil, push it in with a rod. Sand and oil make a funny paste like quicksand sort of. Filled the legs up to 70mm from the edge, then thumped 20mm of dry sand on top and plugged the lot with sand and cement to the edge and let it dry.
Turned it over and welded the legs plate, 100x180x8mm. My friend that was visiting predicted an explosion from the cement but no explosion. I did weld one side on each leg in turns and let it cool. The massive walls of the RHS and the sand and oil were a good heat sink. My concern was that the oil would catch fire and that is why I plugged the end of the legs so that the oil stays inside when I turned it over. I did have a bit of oil dribbling out on one of the legs but it did not catch fire at all.  
Have to bolt it down. Need to drill the plate. 5/8 bolts means a 16mm hole. A twist bit will take forever. Time to wipe the dust off the magnetic base drill   
The bolts need bending at 45 more or less but the bolts place did not have this size bolts in mild steel only high tensile grade 8.
So the bolts need annealing to make them soft again. They have a medium amount of carbon and are heat treated, so red hot and in a bucket of sand should do it. Amazing how long can sand keep the heat.  
Since I had the fire going I decided to curl up a piece of flat bar like I have not done for a while. Free hand, no jig, not bad.  :Smilie:       
The hammer is a cross peen Big Blu number 2 at 2.4lb

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## Moondog55

Considerably more professionally looking than a bit of railway line bolted to a tree trunk.
Is the sand to stop vibration or to increase the mass? Or does it do a bit of both?

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## Marc

Mass on the stand is relative when you have 100kg in the anvil. Not sure really but the reason I did it was to stop the RHS from ringing like a church bell. Now when hit by a hammer it sounds like hardwood, and that is what I needed. Once I get the bolts bent and the anvil anchored down, it should be very quiet.

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## Moondog55

One of the reasons I asked is that mass filling speaker panels with sand is very common, and also mainly to stop that ringing.
Some builders mix dry sand with pouring epoxy to get the filled panels really dead, I've never tried it myself

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## Marc

I suppose that with speakers you want to avoid any chance that the panel resonates. Filling with sand will make the frequency of the panel so low that it will never match any sound from the speaker. 
Another trick is to glue the anvil down with Sika and then tighten the bolts. Sort of makes the anvil and the stand one thing. 
Another one is to simply weld the anvil to the stand. Considered a heresy today was actually common years ago to weld an anvil to universal beam on it's end and concrete in the ground.

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## Marc

Anvil is bolted down now. It's like banging on concrete. No sound at all.   
it was the perfect excuse to get an oxy set  :Smilie:

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## Moondog55

Cecile and I were at the Castlemaine Mill Market and I saw some funny looking blacksmithing stuff I thought I'd ask you Marc as the staff had no idea what they were used for
Only 2 pix as the uploader is still not working properly

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## Moondog55

One more pix

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## Bros

> Considerably more professionally looking than a bit of railway line bolted to a tree trunk.

   Nothing wrong with a bit of railway line for an anvil.

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## Marc

Blacksmith industrial bench / table basis ... beats me. To me it looks more like a jig to make something.  
Bros ... as much as a railway track is very popular as a small anvil, if you want to forge anything bigger than nails, you need mass under your hammer. The only way to use railway track is by having the piece vertical standing on a solid stump and bolted against a post. A pole sawn along half way and then across would make a good support for a railway line standing up.
Much better is to find a forklift tine, again used vertical.   http://www.marco-borromei.com/fork.html    https://youtu.be/4EY1uvc6igw 
In case you wonder, the last picture is a variable hight anvil. The anvil itself is not supported only held in place by the stand. The anvil mass is enough to absorb the strikes. Being able to change the hight of the anvil face is important if you have a striker, that is a helper with a sledge hammer that strikes as you direct him with a smaller hammer.

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## Bros

> Bros ... as much as a railway track is very popular as a small anvil,

  That's all I use it for.

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