Quick heads up on cast iron anvil repair - learned this the hard way last weekend

I had a crack in my old 150 lb Fisher anvil that was getting worse over about 6 months. Decided to weld it myself with a standard nickel rod. Looked great for about 20 minutes then it shattered right along the weld line. Buddy at the local scrap yard told me cast iron needs to be preheated to like 500 degrees and cooled super slow. Cost me $80 in rods and wasted a whole Saturday. Anyone here actually fixed a cracked cast iron anvil successfully? What method worked for you?

3 comments

3 Comments

alexc9314d ago

That "shattered right along the weld line" part is rough, did you do any kind of peening after each pass or just lay the beads down and hope for the best?

jamie_white14d ago

Did you check for hydrogen cracking before you ran the next pass?

blakem3714d ago

Skip the preheat and slow cool nonsense. Ive welded cast iron with just a standard arc welder and high nickel rods, no preheat at all, and it held fine for years on a 200 pound anvil. The key is keeping the weld area small and letting the part cool naturally in still air not burying it in sand. That whole 500 degree preheat thing is overblown by guys who think every cast iron repair needs to be babied. If you rush it or lay down thick beads youll get stress cracks sure, but a few short passes with peening between each one works just as good without the hassle. Ive done three anvils this way and none of them failed. Your buddy at the scrap yard probably heard that from some old timer who never tried anything different.

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