Seth, I expected the bead roller to need some work since most everything mechanical from HF usually needs to completely disassembled, lubed and adjusted. From what I had read about them, most folks usually beef up the frame because it really isn't stiff enough.

However, mine seems to have been made from mostly reject parts. Luckily I had the tools to basically remake the whole thing. There is not a single part except bolts that I did not have to redo to make it work. After I stiffened the frame up, the thing wouldn't turn at all if the bearing blocks were tightened down. The bearing blocks were all different heights as well as out of square and had to be remachined. The shafts were both warped and I had to make new ones.

Even the gears had to be refaced because the bores weren't square with the faces. Because the gears locate the shafts, this meant the clearances had to be very loose to allow it to turn and this meant the rolling dies would not stay adjusted center to center.

I spent about a week of shop time working through the various problems, but now it works great. Jere's mods make sense now that I have been using it and it will roll .060 aluminum with no problems.

I had not read about anyone having the quality issues I did. I may have just got the one that unluckily wound up with a bunch of bad parts. My advice would be to inspect it carefully and return it if it's really bad.