Stiddy

[just bob]

Seems like there's always a demand for these on here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Anvil-for-Cutt ... SwAVBdcR4D

[Byrd]

Wow! I'd love to have one, I can see where it would be a huge assent in knife repair, but is that a decent price on one?

[orvet]

My first one was larger but it was near $300 with shipping. I didn't have a couple already I would get that one. The BIN is a good price and the shipping is dirt cheap!

[Byrd]

Thanks Dale! Being a newbie to repairing pocket knives I'm learning what I need to improve my skills. Tools of the trade!

[Jeffinn]

I noticed these are not hardened steel, it seems like you would want hardened steel for the type of work these are used for. Are they normally hardened steel or just normal untreated steel?

[Meridian_Mike]

Hmmmmmmmm..........

If that is just carbon steel it sure looks like the platform sticking out that far would bend easily (sure is thin). BUT... if it's too hard it would break off..... Right???

[Jeffinn]

Yeah, I’m not sure.
I know you’re not putting a lot of pressure on it when setting handle pins so I guess it’s probably okay either way. I just have a cheap 8lb. anvil. The top of it is getting pretty beat up so I just ordered a stainless steel bench block that has a nice smooth surface.
My thinking was if I decided to try my hand at re-handling an assembled knife, I just attach a suitable thickness steel plate to my bench anvil and use that.
I’ve been looking for one of these stiddy’s for awhile though so it’s tempting to get one while they’re available....

[glennbad]

That tongue sticks out a little far for my liking. Seems like you wouldn't get solid hits sitting that far out. Regardless, it looks quite functional, and at a really decent price.

[Meridian_Mike]

That tongue sticks out a little far for my liking. Seems like you wouldn't get solid hits sitting that far out. Regardless, it looks quite functional, and at a really decent price.

That was another concern I had for that particular one. Would a blow with a hammer tend to "BOUNCE"....?

[glennbad]

That tongue sticks out a little far for my liking. Seems like you wouldn't get solid hits sitting that far out. Regardless, it looks quite functional, and at a really decent price.

That was another concern I had for that particular one. Would a blow with a hammer tend to "BOUNCE"....?

That's my thinking. Even with a shorter tongue, I still don't get a "solid" hit as I would like.

[philco]

Wow! I'd love to have one, I can see where it would be a huge assent in knife repair, but is that a decent price on one?

I think that Caddyman got about $175 for the last ones he sold here on AAPK. They were similar but the tongue was shorter and a bit thicker and I'm pretty sure his were case hardened steel.

[Bill DeShivs]

Caddyman's were not case hardened. They were heat treated.
Case hardening is a surface hardening.

[Ozwelder]

Hi guys
Since there seems to be some interest in the stiddy's, I thought you may like to see my meagre effort.
I made my own stiddy from a piece of cane tram rail line. I live in a major sugar cane growing area so old rails are easily obtainable.

I assume it will be a carbon manganese alloy and therefore should be able to be hardened. I am fortunate as a was given a electric heat treatment oven.

All I need to do to improve this HT oven is add something called a PID which will allow it a thermostat function, a topic which I will need to study up on.

The unit pictured was roughed out using a 6x 4 band saw and later my mate milled the top for me

I have attached a picture of the stiddy before machining. More pics when I get it milled cleaned and painted up.
In case you are wondering ,the pitting in the rail base came from being partially buried.

Ozwelder

[Meridian_Mike]

Very cool use of a rail.

One question..... I am assuming the rails are made of steel that can be milled (easily??)... What is the hardness of the rail you have VS the hardness of modern rails?

I guess where I am going with this is this.... I have a piece of newer rail that I would like to mill the top surface flat. How many milling bits am I going to burn up?

[Ozwelder]

G,day Mike,
I wouldn't see milling the top of a modern rail being a problem.

I made a bench anvil out of some heavy coal train line and was able to use the milling machine with a multi TC bit face cutter.
It did not stress the mill at all. I have since retired and have lost my access to the mill at work, but lucky my best mate has one.

If you are worried at all give the surface to be milled, a good grind with an angle grinder. This will remove the work hardened area made by the railroad wheels.

A characteristic of Carbon Manganese steel is that it it work hardens,so it will harden from the work done on it to a small extent.

I am only using the Ht oven, well! as an opportunity to just try it out.

If I make a mistake I still have six feet more of the rail.

Cheers
Ozwelder

[Meridian_Mike]

Good point about removing the wheel hardened area!
I will do that before starting the milling. My bro-in-law has the milling machine and I am going to supply new bits when we do it. (I don't want to burn up his bits....LOL)

Thanks for the guidance!

Mike

[mrwatch]

I don't know much about rail, but in 1964 they were off loading one mile long track in central Illinois. Flexible, as it came off the group of train cars. Problem was in hot summers it could buckle and they would have go and cut sections as it expanded too much. Don't know if they still use it. Rail is used for anvils. I have a nice small anvil and maybe I could add a stiddy to the top, like by drill and tap the flat surface?

[Dinadan]

I was thinking that grinding the top of the rail flat, then welding a plate of the desired thickness and hardness to the top of the rail might be the best way to go. I have to admire Ozwelder's determination!

[orvet]

About 10 years ago and I made and sold a number of stiddys here on AAPK. I made them out of railroad track.
I will post some pictures so you can get an idea of how to make your own.
I am not sure why everyone wants to have the top of their stiddys he treated. The first one I was not heat-treated, and yes it did get a few little dings in it which I would remove by sanding the top down when it got bad enough to bother me. I do not use a stiddy as an anvil to forge and shaped metal on it, if I were doing that then yes, I would want the top he treated.

The railroad track stiddys that I built were considerably harder than the commercially made stiddy I purchased. When I peen the backside of handle pins I use a piece of aluminum because that is softer and it is not flatten the tops of the pin like hardened steel does.

I will show you some of the stiddys I've made, two that I have in my shop and what I use most of the time instead of a stiddy.

This is the stiddy I bought that was about $300 with shipping.

The disk of aluminum on top is for peening the handle pins without flattening the head of the pin. When it gets all dinged up, I run it on my belt sander for about 10 seconds and the dings are gone. When the disk it's too low I put a new one on there.

This is my Camillus stiddy that came from the factory. I got it from someone who worked at the factory.
I asked him if he had any more he wanted to sell and he responded that he only have a couple left and they have a lot of memories for him.

This is the first stiddy I made, and I made by welding railroad track. I did not have the right kind of rod for railroad track. I was told that only the railroad has that rod you can't buy it. So I did the best I could with the rod I could find.
I gave this stiddy to Johnnie Fain who was an moderator here on AAPK. Johnnie had COPD and he had a cutting board with the stiddy I made for him bolted to it and a small vice clamped on it, and that was his workbench. He said in his recliner with his laptop close by and he could post on AAPK, watch television and work on knives. Johnnie passed away I believe in March 2009. I think we had about 2500 members at that time and the person can read every post made every day. It was a pretty close knit community with maybe 60 people who were active posters.
This was kind of a prototype stiddy that I made for Johnnie to see if I can make one. I didn't even know if I could actually make a stiddy or not. Johnnie used it for a year or two and after he passed his wife sent it back to me. It's on one of my benches and it's the stiddy I use most frequently if I need a stiddy.

Here are a bunch of other stiddys I made over the course of two or three years. I stopped making them because they were very time-consuming, each stiddy took me about about 3 days to make, once I had the railroad track cut into smaller usable pieces.
To take a chunk of railroad track that looks like this:

to a finish stiddy like this one, which was the first one I did by welding it.
I am showing these views so you can see how it was made:

There is in my opinion a better way to make these and I will show them in my next post.

[Ozwelder]

Hi guys
Here are pics of the what inspired me. It was all just a rush of excrement to the brain until I discovered the cane tram rail.
First pic is a set of dimensions for a stiddy from the net.

Second is of a stiddy where the maker possibly did not own a mill and opted to attach the ledge by either welding or drill and tapped holes.

Note on the attached pic that the ledge is just a piece of angle iron.

For those, like me, who don't have an old school Popular mechanics style workshop it is a good way to go.

I have yet to utilise a stiddy for pocket knife assembly but would question why it needs to be all that hard. Its not about tool bling but what functions as you want it to. I am wary of the "hard" tool marking a knife.

Ozwelder

[Ozwelder]

G'day Dale,
The second pic of a stiddy is a little ripper. The others encompass some real good ideas as well.
None of them look too hard to make with basic shop tools.
Like I said in the earlier post they don't need to be pretty ,just to to fulfill their purpose.
Cheers
Ozwelder

[orvet]

When I started making these stiddys for sale I felt I needed a better method and a faster method to produce them.
That turned out to be drilling and tapping the piece of road track to add the peening horn to it.
I will try to post a variety of views so you can see how I made them and show you two or three different types of stiddys.
One thing to keep in mind when you see mine mounted to the workbench, that is because it is too small to be stable the base should probably have been 6 inches long so it could set on the workbench without tipping over. I attach it to my workbench with screws so it doesn't tip over when I'm trying to use it. A broad base, and a lower center of gravity works better for these.

This was about the second stiddy I made. I bolted some micarta to the front to provide a softer surface to work on.

Stiddy #8

More to come.

[orvet]

Here is a stiddy/anvil combo.

The most time-consuming part about building one of these is getting the tracks smoothed down and shined up.
But that is not necessary, you notice that the stiddys I use look old unused, because they are.
If you look at the peening shoe or peening horn that is bolted onto the back of the stiddy you will see it's made out of angle iron. It is not hardenable steel, but it doesn't need to be. If someone wanted to make one of these to use for peening the backside of the handle pin while the knife is still assembled you can make it out of a piece about 1 inch angle iron and when it is nicely thinned at the edge you can clamp it into a vice and use it without having a stiddy attached to it.

Neither of my stiddys are attached to my main workbench because frankly iy small and gets overcrowded at times.
The reality is the horn on the stiddy very infrequently. What I use primarily on my workbench is this piece of steel and the little disco aluminum on top of that. This is very stable and does not tip and I don't have to screw it into the top of the workbench or cut a socket for it to set in nine times out of 10 I do the work I want to do right on my desk without going to a real stiddy. I paid $5 or $10 for this, was much cheaper than any stiddy I will!
It works for me anyway, your mileage may vary!

[Meridian_Mike]

I LIKE the little anvil stiddy. That is a real beauty.

Is it for using or just lookin' at.....LOL

I have a piece of RR track and 3 or 4 different small anvils I use. My RR track stiddy needs a hole drilled in it for removing pins. I (for some reason..??) thought the steel was too hard to drill. Well, now that I know better, Mine will have a hole in it.

I have a BIG honey-do chore going right now and it might be a couple more weeks before I can even see the inside of my shop again.


This has been a very helpful thread. Thanks for all your pics and write-up Dale!

[Reverand]

I have been working on one, off and on for a while.
Mine is from a piece of small track ($20 from eBay).
The hardest part to me was flattening the top. I clamped the track to a 4' level and held it flat on the belt sander for a couple of hours, cooling it with water when needed.
I have finished hardening & tempering a piece of angle to bolt onto the front of it (I wish I had read from Dale that it doesn't need to be heat treated!)

I will add more pics if I can find them.