Taking top 10mm off railway track to make it flat

[ELL]

I have some rail track and want to make it go from curved to flat on the top to use as an anvil. It looks like I need to take roughly 10mm off the top to get to flat. The track is 12 inches long.
What is the best tool or machine to use for this? I want a very clean accurate cut so the top is nice and neat and flat. I am open to all possible options, thanks.

 

[addjunkie]

Milling or surface grinding

 

[Fazerruss]

Or a shaper

 

[Kram]

I believe track is a particualar type of work hardening stainless? steel, which, if its been used, would be hard work to mill flat - carbide cutters and slow work.

First mark it out then rough cut with a grinder cutting disc and flap disc, which should get you to the last milimeter to be removed.

If your not after tenth of milimeter accuracy - its for an anvil .. you could weld up a jig with some linear rails, to let you surface grind.

If you have a large flat plate/work surface, you could mount a die grinder on sliding blocks and shim them to the working height.

 

[sako243]

How long is the anvil going to be? To be honest if it's 10mm I'd sorely be tempted to fire up my big petrol disc cutter to take the meat of it off (running the disc horizontally if it were laying normally but I'd clamp it upright). Take it carefully and then the fettling to make it nice and flat would be reduced.

 

[6ply]

Milling or surface grinding

Milling first and then surface grinding if you wanted a mirror finish. However, that mirror finish would be spoiled on first use so why bother?

You wouldn't want to surface grind 10mm off. It would take forever.

 

[6ply]

12" long. Easy job for any mill with suitable capacity + face mill with inserts.

 

[julianf]

I thought the point of track as an anvil was that it came work hardened?

Skimming off the hard bit seems to be a step backward?

 

[Erie Fred]

I thought the point of track as an anvil was that it came work hardened?

Skimming off the hard bit seems to be a step backward?

Maybe....however the last pass (if shallow enough) might just work harden it.

Looks like page 4 has the chemistry:

https://www.thepwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/UTE-Chapter-03.pdf

 

[gaz1]

How long is the anvil going to be? To be honest if it's 10mm I'd sorely be tempted to fire up my big petrol disc cutter to take the meat of it off (running the disc horizontally if it were laying normally but I'd clamp it upright). Take it carefully and then the fettling to make it nice and flat would be reduced.

id turn it on its side and fasten it to some wood cut it off that way do half and spin it around thats to avoid any trapping it can do

as i have the hand shaper id finish it off in that

 

[m_c]

12" long. Easy job for any mill with suitable capacity + face mill with inserts.

This.
A decent mill with face cutter will have it done by the time you've worn through your first grinding/cutting disc, however with a typical hobby mill, it would likely be quite painful.

 

[Robotstar5]

Hacksaw?

Punishment in the apprentice training school was "the bar", you had to cut a ¼" slice off a 4" bar with a hacksaw.

 

[fizzy]

Milling first and then surface grinding if you wanted a mirror finish. However, that mirror finish would be spoiled on first use so why bother?

You wouldn't want to surface grind 10mm off. It would take forever.

Definitely. A normal surface grinder doesn't like more than a few thou at a time.
A milling machine with a carbide face mill will do it no problem.

 

[fizzy]

I believe track is a particualar type of work hardening stainless? steel, which, if its been used, would be hard work to mill flat - carbide cutters and slow work.

First mark it out then rough cut with a grinder cutting disc and flap disc, which should get you to the last milimeter to be removed.

If your not after tenth of milimeter accuracy - its for an anvil .. you could weld up a jig with some linear rails, to let you surface grind.

If you have a large flat plate/work surface, you could mount a die grinder on sliding blocks and shim them to the working height.

I doubt it would be stainless - far too expensive. High carbon I should think. Rails soon go very rusty if a train hasn't passed by for a while.

 

[Morrisman]

Hacksaw?

Punishment in the apprentice training school was "the bar", you had to cut a ¼" slice off a 4" bar with a hacksaw.

I remember when I lived in the far east, there was one street in town that sold nothing but metal, scrap, old, new, all sorts. Sat on the floor in one shack was an ancient guy whose job was to saw up old 3” diameter hydraulic ram shaft into 12” lengths.

Just sat on the floor, with the shaft in a vice, welded to an old wheel, like they all seem to over there, and he hacksawed all day long.

Amazingly the street is on Google Street view, and the very shop the guy was in is shown.
This pic is from 2017, which is when I left the place, never to return. Note the diligent health and safety….

 

[fizzy]

I remember when I lived in the far east, there was one street in town that sold nothing but metal, scrap, old, new, all sorts. Sat on the floor in one shack was an ancient guy whose job was to saw up old 3” diameter hydraulic ram shaft into 12” lengths.

Just sat on the floor, with the shaft in a vice, welded to an old wheel, like they all seem to over there, and he hacksawed all day long.

Amazingly the street is on Google Street view, and the very shop the guy was in is shown.
This pic is from 2017, which is when I left the place, never to return. Note the diligent health and safety….

View attachment 476745

One of my favourite YouTubers is a young Vietnamese chap. Amazing work.

 

[Ian X]

You need a mill owner, or a shaper owner, that is about 200cm3 of material if you want it with no radius.

 

[Erie Fred]

I remember when I lived in the far east, there was one street in town that sold nothing but metal, scrap, old, new, all sorts. Sat on the floor in one shack was an ancient guy whose job was to saw up old 3” diameter hydraulic ram shaft into 12” lengths.

Just sat on the floor, with the shaft in a vice, welded to an old wheel, like they all seem to over there, and he hacksawed all day long.

Amazingly the street is on Google Street view, and the very shop the guy was in is shown.
This pic is from 2017, which is when I left the place, never to return. Note the diligent health and safety….

View attachment 476745

....and he has a right hook to watch out for for sure.

 

[Morrisman]

....and he has a right hook to watch out for for sure.

It looks like he broke his vice, bottom right corner of the pic.

I’ve never understood why nobody ever mounts a bench vice to a bench in the far east, I don’t think I ever saw one mounted to anything other than an old wheel.

 

[Martin Hocking]

I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but I remember having a poke round the workshop at a local narrow gauge railway.

I chatted to a chap that worked there and he showed me their dsg lathe which they used for reprofiling the train wheels. Using a hydraulic copying attachment.
It looked a hefty beast but the chap said even then it was quite tough going, I think the term he used was micro peening from the wheel and track clattering together.

I don’t know if the wheels are harder than the track.