How To Turn Railroad Track into a DIY Homemade Anvil

In this first example, Swedish YouTuber my mechanics discovered a short stretch of railroad track during a recent workshop clean-up — covered in dust and under a lot of trash, and serving no purpose. He didn’t realize that it was there — and he decides to turn it into an anvil.

After some online research, he had an idea of how it should look and started to cut it into the basic shape with the angle grinder.

He milled the surfaces flat after a rough shaping with the angle grinder and drilled a hole in it. If you don’t have access to a milling machine, you could also grind the surfaces clean with an angle grinder.

Having the top surfaces finished, he was able to start shaping the anvil horn. The biggest pieces were cut off first with an angle grinder and then I started to shape the horn. Rough shaping at first with the angle grinder, then smoothing out with a file and then sandpaper.

To remove all the rust and paint, the anvil was quickly sandblasted. If you don’t have access to a sandblaster, you could also remove the rust with a wire wheel or just grind it all clean with the angle grinder.

For rust protection moving forward, cold bluing was used, and finally, each of the anvils’ functional surfaces was sanded clean again. This gave the whole thing a nice touch and some contrast.

DIY Homemade Railroad Track Anvil

DIY Homemade Railroad Track Anvil ~ Alternate Example

YouTuber Gavin Clark turns a 16 inch long stretch of rusty old railroad track into an anvil using a simple angle grinder.

“This was a good metalworking project for me, I totally enjoyed doing this. It was one of those simple jobs I like — putting something on the workbench, cutting some stuff off of it, and cleaning it up a bit and the job is done. Good times!”

Gavin Clark

Primary Tools Used in this Project

• Angle Grinder,
• 5-inch Random Orbital Sander, and a
• Bench Vice.