(By Greg Rourke) – When it comes to metalworking, you can buy all sorts of high zoot equipment. English wheels, planishing hammers, and all sorts of welding machines. When it comes down to it, most metalworking requires the most basic of equipment, the anvil.

So what do we do? We can use the flat, anvil like surface on the back of your bench vise. That only allows so much access. We can wander over to our local Home Labyrinth store and drop many shekels on a store bought anvil, but whats the fun in that? This being BangShift and all, we like to do things on the cheap. So making our own anvil it is.
First we need to acquire some railroad rail. It’s very tough steel, and it’s heavy…mainline railroads use 132 pound rail, 132 pounds per yard. Contact a railroad about getting a piece of scrap, or scrap metal yards might have some. Then a bandsaw or torch, a grinder, a drill, and a little welding and you have something to be proud of. Also something to pound the holy hell out of.