junk yard anvil

[Renassiance man]

I've been cultivating the local scrap yard foreman in the large town near where I live. Today he let me in to admire his 400,000 ton's of scrap headed to the smelters off shore only to return to us as new automobiles. Any how, as I was gazing at this 12 story high pile of rusting stuff, I spotted what may be my long sought after knife anvil. It was a 6" diameter round solid bar of steel that was once some kind of bearing shaft mounted on humongus pillow bearings. The only problem was the thing was about 10 feet long half buried under the mega ton pile. I'm not sure I can extract it and even if I do I don't have the equipment to transport it and get it cut into 18" length's for my anvil. Anyhow, if there is one piece there is another in there and eventually I'll find it.

Anyone have any idea what a knife anvil made from a piece of steel like that might be worth if I can manipulate this thing? I'm figuring a 6" diameter shaft 18" long would have good mass for the task? At the moment it's a pillow dream but the chance is there I might pull it off.

[Ray Rogers]

As near as I can approximate it, a piece of cylindrical steel measuring 6 x 18" should weigh about 144 pounds and that is as much as a small anvil.

As for its value, it is worth what you are willing to pay for it. I imagine the scrap dealer has a good idea of what it's worth to him since he probably sells the stuff by the ton ....

[Renassiance man]

well, haven't any idea what the scrap man thinks he can get for it but I'm wondering what smith's and, especially, knife makers might be willing to pay for a 140# anvil of this shape/size/weight? If I can find the interest I'd make the effort to recover it and carry it to a mill somewhere to have it slice up into sections.

BTW, I also saw a 4' long section of a 14" wide mill band saw blade in the pile - probably 15N20 - I'm told this is used by knifemakers and is a good steel to make damascas with?? Was this fairly rare and wonderful or just about availavle anywhere to the knife maker?

[Ray Rogers]

I think the rule of thumb for the cost of an actual used anvil is to pay $1 per pound. The shape in this case wouldn't be a huge problem for most knife makers I guess but you have to take into account the fact that this 'anvil' doesn't have a hardened face although one could probably be added. That, plus the anticipated expense of shipping and handling would mean that the cost of the anvil would probably have to be very reasonable.

The saw blade may have been fairly rare because I don't often hear of a bandsaw blade 14" wide. Actually, I don't think I have ever heard of one that wide. :cool: But, that doesn't necessarily make it valuable. Many threads in these forums have discussed the difficulty of using saw blades for knife blades. There comes a point of diminishing returns when you consider that you don't really know what steel it is, and the cost of annealing it before you can cut it, then the cost of cutting and processing it into a usable size for damascus, etc etc. Carbon steels are cheap to buy and most makers are far better off if they just buy what they want in the first place ....

[Daniel J]

For what it's worth, I paid $35 canadian for This piece. It's around 3.5" by 4" by 2 foot long, which came to around 100lbs. There was a 9ft piece lying on the ground that they cut my chunk out of with an O/A torch. (This means that the "face" is a real mess, which is why I haven't set it up yet- It'll take a good while with a grinder to get that thing dressed anywhere near flat.)

Generally, pieces in the giant recycle pile are pieces they won't let you have. Look around for stuff that's in the saleable piles. If the guy is really nice, he might get them to pull it out, at which point I suppose you would torch cut into transportable pieces so you can take it somewhere that will give you clean cuts at your desired size.

[Renassiance man]

thanks for the comment.

I know that's pretty inexpensive for a anvil-in-the-making piece of iron. How much would you have paid if it was already a 140# mill cut steel shaft and you didn't have to do all that work to face off the end? What's your time worth? Are we talking a $50 - 75 item here? I donno?:confused:

[Renassiance man]

The saw blade may have been fairly rare because I don't often hear of a bandsaw blade 14" wide. Actually, I don't think I have ever heard of one that wide. :cool: But, that doesn't necessarily make it valuable. Many threads in these forums have discussed the difficulty of using saw blades for knife blades. There comes a point of diminishing returns when you consider that you don't really know what steel it is, and the cost of annealing it before you can cut it, then the cost of cutting and processing it into a usable size for damascus, etc etc. Carbon steels are cheap to buy and most makers are far better off if they just buy what they want in the first place .... [/B]

Ray:

My thinking about the blade was prompted by a piece of the exact same size and so forth given to me by Ray Kirk a few weeks ago. He chops it up into 2" wide strips and layers it into stacks with 52100 and forges beautiful damascas. I just didn't know how much "value" a section might have to a blade maker who was dong that kind of forging. My used segment of blade is 10" wide, BTW,. My eyeball was out of calibration in the scrap yard because it was raining that day.

In any case, I'm just going to have to stop "seeing" all this neat stuff that I think someone else can use - but it's hard for an old pack rat like myself to pass on any "good stuff"

[Ray Rogers]

I know what you mean, Ren. I'm in the process of getting an 11 yard dump truck full of scrap steel dumped over here. But, it will be used for building stuff, not for blades. For most of us, I really don't think making blades on a large scale that way really works to our advantage because of the expense of processing and because of the lack of certainty about what you are working with.

Still, when you see a pile of great crap like you saw I can't help but imagine the possibilities ....

[Renassiance man]

Still, when you see a pile of great crap like you saw I can't help but imahine the possibilities .... [/B]

yeah - talked myself out of a JYPH a while back when I contemplated the need to source & haul all that iron around and weld it up - and me not being a blacksmith or even know how to weld. Eventually, reality will grab me by the short hair again and I'll come to my senses. I'm relocating to Colorado in the next 10 months and I sure don't want to haul all that iron out there from Maine.