A couple of years back, I managed to pick up a nice railroad track anvil for just $6, and it was great for the metal I was working with. Somehow, on my trip down to California, it got lost in the move and I've been without a good pounding surface for a while.

Yesterday, I was driving through town and happened to see truck with a bunch of large pieces of scrap metal... including a 3-foot section of railroad track. I figured he was probably headed towards a scrap recycler, so I followed him a few miles until he pulled into a metal scrap yard. I hopped out and asked him if I could buy the track off of him before he dumped it, and after a quick bartering session, I walked away with a chunk of metal for $10.



Three feet is a bit long for my workspace, so cut it down with an oxy-acetylene torch (fun!).



I spent the rest of the morning building a workbench for myself, since I was using one of my kids' picnic tables as my work space. This was built entirely from scrap pieces of wood left over from a previous project. Eventually, I might build a larger workbench, but this will do for now.