Thread: Bead rollers

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I’m making some progress building the firewall and floor for the 37. I think it would probably be a good idea to roll a few beads in the panels to give them a bit more strength and keep them from oil canning.

I could probably run them by one of the local shops that does HVAC ducting. I’ve also been looking at some of the cheaper ($100-200 range) rollers like Eastwood and Summit sell. I could justify that cost for of one of one of these units and would probably use it occasionally after this project is done.

I was wondering if anyone has experience with one of these cheaper units and if they are just junk or would work OK for occasional light duty work.

I've been using one of the Eastwood bead rollers for about 10 years or better--no problems. I never have tried anything heavier then 20 ga. steel and .040" aluminum. It's not the most heavy duty roller on the market, but for the price and a bit of tuning it does a good job Mike...

I have a motorized bead roller and work with 16-18ga. The harborfrieght etc can't get the job done, i have seen people brace them up. The real problem is that the bead roll proportions are all wrong. I have even made my own dies to experement. The best thing i have found to do a firewall (other than with a nice big press) is by hand with a self made die and receiver. take a couple pieces of steel (1/8 X 1 strap) and tack them to a plate with a 3/4 or 1" gap (however wide you want your 'bead') the die is a solid chunk of steel - so's you can pound on it, about 6" tall like a big punch - the die part has to be the width of the gap you created with the strapping - less an 1/8th or so and most important! it has to have wings on either side that extend to the outside edge of the steel strapping, the wings are what makes the 'break' in the metal. The die cannot be very long - maybe an inch long. Set your metal on top of the receiver plate and beat the hell out of it with the die.
I make them as needed and don't have one right now, if you want to try it but can't vision what i am trying to explain shoot me a pm and i'll whip one up and make an example seam ok?

The harbor frieght bead roller will do you just fine. Just keep in mind that it will need some square tubing or such to stiffen it up and keep it from flexing. such is the case with any of the cheaper ones. Also helps a bunch to polish and radius all the sharp edges on the dies.

bead roller 1 A medieval devise used to turn nice hand fitted panels in to junk in seconds flat. 2 used in medieval time as a hi -teck torture devise to run the skin of your knuckle over in the drive gears over many years of use it was found it could also be used to roll beads in metal and knuckles skin at the same time. yep i own one if you run over the metal more then one or two time or the frame can flex .the one i have is 17 years old its eastwood

We have a Pro Tools electric bead roller and it works great and is one of those tools that collects dust 364 days a year, but you wonder how you ever lived without it that other day a year when you use it. But for doing something like floorboards or firewall the HF one has been reported on other forums to work very well, but does need some bracing, as the guys mentioned.

One tip that might help when you do roll beads, Dan came up with a way to roll perfectly straight beads, and we are normally not all that good with getting straight lines. He clamped two pieces of long flat stock across the panel being rolled, and spaced them exactly one inch apart, the width of our dies. That way the die has to roll right down that path, making a very straight bead.

We also got the exact same height on each bead by counting how many turns we made on the handle that squeezes the dies together. We brought the die down until it just touched the work, and then turned the handle the exact same number of turns for each bead.

Hope this helps someone else out.

Don

I HATE THE WAY THIS NEW FORMAT POSTS PICTURES OUT OF SEQUENCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why does that happen??

yep thats nice work don .i was doing back panles on a buick grand national drag car were i was doing a oval lines some of the thing i wish i had photos of . i had a friend running the handle and i was driving the bead roll on a trans tunnel he like to speed up in the turns . almost a fist fight over that

Hehe, we aren't good on the turns either. I've seen some amazing bead work on line, guys doing flames, Chevy bowtie emblems, etc. We're happy if they all end up even !

Don

Very nice Don; I love those photo's and it was explained very well.
Kurt

Don I've not tryed here but on other forums with the same or similar format before you post you can click and drag the photos to get them in order. I have a bead roller but you cant raise the roller so you can tell where you start then you have to back it up. works great for floors.

Originally Posted by pat mccarthy

yep thats nice work don .i was doing back panles on a buick grand national drag car were i was doing a oval lines some of the thing i wish i had photos of . i had a friend running the handle and i was driving the bead roll on a trans tunnel he like to speed up in the turns . almost a fist fight over that

Hehe,or even find someone willing to run the crank for ya. I solved that problem with ebay, a $50 24 volt gear reduction motor,a $10 electronic china speed control,a $10 foot switch and a $5 forward/reverse switch and a few hours labor. 24 volts seemed to run it too fast so I rigged it to run off my 18 volt power tool batteries.

yep that a good deal there HWORRELL i would do this and mount it in a counter top so parts would lay flat but fab/header work round here has dried up so its been sitting under the weld table for many years i should sell it. i seen guy use a die on a pullmax and lay beads down that way

Thanks for all the replys and insight guys. I'm back to rethinking options though. The material I'm using for the floors and fire wall is 17 gauge stainless and most of the machines I've found are onlly rated of 18 gauge (I'm pretty sure they are only talking about mild steel).

For grins yesterday I built a die and tried to hand form some beads and got a pretty good idea on just how tough the stainless is. Even using my press to try to form a bead didn't work out.

It looks like my options are either finding someone around town with a roller HD enough to form the beads (I'll be checking this morning) , using lighter metal, heating the area I want the bead just prior to running it thru the roller (which I think would end up causing a lot of warpage), or building a frame work under the stainless.

Mike see if you can find someone that makes stainless cabinets for industrial kitchen applications.

Mike

your close enough to get it ready and then go to LA and have some one there do it--plenty of places there--maybe Ken can suggest some body