New addition to the shop

[Brian Holcombe]

My my father offered me an anvil for my shop, complete with base, but the top needed a bit of work;

I bought a new cutter for the mill;



And put it to use. I don't know if any of you guys are into machine work but this is a pass taking .010" of steel off.



That second photo is in dad's shop.

[Reinis Kanders]

Sweet setup. What are you going to do with that anvil? Put some diamonds on it and you will have giant Kanaban.

[Robert McNaull]

Don't judge, but that second photo is kind of sexy. The old iron getting a clean surface, very nice! I have always loved machining equipment and precision that can be produced.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Gents! Robert, I share that sentiment, nothing like polishing up some old iron. This one is from 1931.

Reinis, I'm thinking along those lines, it's nice to have a precision surface in the shop and I will build an aluminium insert for the hardy hole to use for adjusting Kanna blades (tapping out).

I havent decided if I will take it one step further with the diamond plate or just leave it alone.

[Steve Voigt]

Brian, congratulations. That is a beautiful anvil. Looking forward to seeing it fully restored.

[Steve Kinnaird]

Looks great!
Love having an excuse to buy a new tool

[Steve Voigt]

Sweet setup. What are you going to do with that anvil? Put some diamonds on it and you will have giant Kanaban.

I hope you are kidding. A kanaban is 20 or 30 bucks. That anvil is a beautiful and valuable old tool.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks guys! Happy to give this old tool a fresh start. It spent life being beat to death by highschool kids, the top was beat to hell and badly swayback.

All of the damage came out except on chip that was too big to chase. My father plans to work the sides a bit by hand and put a mitered edge on it, that should remove anything left.

[Jebediah Eckert]

Several impressive woodworking threads showcasing the magical dust repelling carpet....CHECK

Metalworking thread showcasing a really cool restoration with a high level of accuracy ..... CHECK

What can we look forward to next, gourmet cooking, minor surgeries, glass blowing, directing a symphony, or maybe even a frame off muscle car rebuild? Whatever it is I'm sure it will be interesting with great pictures.

Keep em' coming, they are very enjoyable to follow, even if they do make me feel......ah, a bit inadequately skilled.....

[Brian Hale]

70 surface footage and. 020 chip load., assuming that's a 3" cutter.

[Brian Holcombe]

LOL @ Jebediah!

Brian it's 80mm, but since the cutters are round the actual cut diameter is a bit smaller. I did sort of an when I started to take heavier cuts and turn up the speeds, my first passes were like .002". After some experience using basic flycutters in a mill I was surprised at the bite this cutter could take.

I am planning to build an accessory for the hardy hole in a block of aluminum and plan to go at it with this same cutter to flatten the surfaces. I probably wont increase the cut depth, but the speeds should increase a bit. Similarly to a flycutter this bit does not like partial cuts, so the start was slow and I had to be mindful going over areas like the hardy hole.

Anywho, for anyone reading I want to point out that this is a special case, the hardness of anvil faces can vary greatly! And so in many cases they are too hard to mill. I dont know what happened in the lifetime of this anvil but the face was not very hard.

[Brian Hale]

I run an older Matsuura 600V gear head machine and most of what i cut are tougher metals, tungsten, inconel, monel, etc and use a variety of insert cutters. You can remove an amazing amount of material with them. One like yours I'd start around 250 s/f (320 rpm) ,. 01 c/l (19 ipm) and perhaps. 06 depth of cut and see how the chips look.

I know what you mean about a light pass with these cutters, they don't work well. They do better with a big heavy chip,but that takes horse power....

[Shawn Pixley]

Brian, very cool. From the look of it, this is a cast iron anvil, no? A forged steel anvil would likely be much slower going. How do you plan to dress the edges? Or will it not be used for smithing at all?

[Brian Holcombe]

Whoa Brian, thanks for the rec's on settings, looks like I was well short of those. I noticed it was rather unhappy with light cuts, got some chatter, but the heavy cuts were very smooth.

Shawn, the top is a steel plate welded to the cast iron base. My father is planning to dress them with a grinder. He'll probably do a tapered radius along the edges if not a plain miter. I dont plan to use this for forging at the moment, but if I move into a place where I can include a metal shop, it certainly will be.

[george wilson]

The anvil could have been in a fire,which annealed the face. Does it have a welded on tool steel face? It looks like it does in the picture.

Nice mill. Looks just like mine. I always meant to get one of those cute little red SPI quill locks,but never remembered to.