Looking for some good advice on some of the pros from here on picking out a powered bead roller to make floor pans and some other peices. Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated
I'm not a pro and I "just" have the hand operated Eastwood one but I'd say buy the best one you can afford reasonably. By reasonably I mean what your budget allows for as we all have different toy budgets and it isn't cool to assume that a guy either has a tight budget or an unlimited budget for shop stuff we aren't going to use to make a living with if we don't know them well.
How often are you going to use it? That is really the big question. I have a modified and stiffened HF bead roller with a bit tractor steering wheel on it in place of the crank. I've made firewalls, bumper filler panels and floor pan pieces with it but it largely sits unused......until I need it again. If I were making pieces on a regular basis, you bet I would have a nice electric powered one that I could play with. Mine gets me where I'm going and doesn't take up a lot of space.
Well, I've started constructing my homemade powered bead roller. I have scanned this and other sites and looked at numerous pictures on the internet which eventually had my head spinning. I made a check list of the features I thought might be useful which included, that it be; Powered On a stand Relatively easy to move Have a throat of at least 24 inches good for floor panels Have a side offset adjustment A quick release which holds existing settings Run 1 inch shafts which step down to 7/8" for dies An adjustable guide Made mostly from stuff that I have in my stash Run standard 2 inch dies Run keyways on all shafts, even if not used Foot pedal stop/start or variable speed your choice. (I chose stop/start) Forward and reverse direction function. I believe all the big name bead roller manufacturers like Mittler Bros, Baileigh and Eastwood all have YouTube promotion videos, watch them, that would be a good start in my book. Any powered unit really needs to have decent variable speed range which gives you fast enough speeds to do straight runs which don't take forever to complete as well as slow enough speeds to do any tricky curves and intricate work you may choose to attempt as your skill level improves. IMHO a shaft speed between say 3 to 7 rpm would be reasonable, but lest see what the experts say... Happy hunting.
No Pro Here Either But; Here's a modified Woodward Fab I converted to foot feed power and a reverser....................................
I copied this https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tool-tech-another-hf-bead-roller-stand.118726/ Then I powered it like this. https://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?347161-how-to-install-a-motor-on-HF-bead-roller I just got the drum switch today. Plan to wire and finish mine up before xmas
Agree with what you have to say. Dont have a huge budget just want something decent but powered dont always have an extra hand in,the shop.
delcar, here on the HAMB classifieds used to sell (still might) "kits". The On/ON switch is for the reverser...............................
Bailiegh offers a motor driven bead roll Power Bead Roller BR-18E-24 $1,195.00 In stock 110V electric bead roller 16 gauge mild steel capacity 24” throat depth Variable-speed foot pedal control They also offer a good discount to alliance members, spend 50 bucks with Ryan and save a lot more that 50 bucks in savings when you buy from Bailiegh. HRP
I am going the more tradition route using a half Ford banjo diff tube as my post base. Who said I was not a traditional hot rod guy... Just running with what I have in my stash.
For me it was a matter of is my time or money more valuable? I have so little time as it is to work on projects I wasn't going to waste the little time I have modifying a cheap bread roller to power it. I did own one but it was pretty much impossible to use alone on any sizable panel so I bought a mittler bros aluminum bodied roller and it has worked great. Sent from my SM-G950W using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
"I have so little time as it is to work on projects I wasn't going to waste the little time I have modifying a cheap bread roller to power it." Well at the time I had $500 to spend on one, not $1200 for a Bailiegh. Did I mention it has a reverser! Sent from my SM-G950W using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Started with a Eastwood budget bead roller. Had a little flex in the frame so welded up a "U" frame on one site to firm it up. Found the crank handle awkward to use to made up a wheel to get a smooth turn on the dies. Smoothed the surface of the dies to cut down on the marking of the metal. The hardest part was a power drive so I settled on a infinite variable speed with reverse and instead of a foot control oped for the latest tech, "Voice Control" . Works great.
Trouble with some of those voice control units they get tired and/or answer back, hahahaha... Although it looks like you may have scored a good one.
My voice control talks back, is very sensitive and can be troublesome at times. I'm working on an interlink so I can use Siri.
I bought a budget bead roller and added power to it and beefed it up. Details and wiring etc. here : https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/another-bead-roller-beef-up-and-power.756945/
I have the ProTools powered bead roller, mines 20 years old and is starting to get weak - It's a beafy piece that I've never felt the need to 'improve', I probably did too much 16ga steel on it. A buddy hase the Mittler Bros and the ProTools is the better machine for less money, I believe they are under $800. This stuff is getting stupid expensive, I just paid $139 for a couple of hammers. We are just nuts, totally nuts. ProTools is in Florida, if you need it for google, they make pro grade tools for the race car fabricators.
Here's mine - direct drive with a HF ATV winch. It will creep very slow or about an inch per second with the pedal all the way down. The winch drive and bead roller are coupled with Lovejoy couplings. I tried welding the HF spline drive to the Lovejoy, but it appears that it is some type of sintered metal soaked in oil and it went in the trash can. I filed a nut a little to fit tight in the female spline on the winch and welded it to the Lovejoy. The electronics consist of a 20a DC power supply, a PWM module and a used guitar wawa pedal. The only trick was finding a wawa pedal that had a potentiometer with the same resistance as the PWM module. A toggle switch reverses the motor direction. All were sourced from ebay for less than $50 for all three pieces. Most of my bead roller project are smaller steel pieces or aluminum and I've never bothered to stiffen it up. I've run five or six projects through it, but it isn't used very much. If you think you'll only use it once, I'd consider buying a Mittler or a Baleigh (or Pro Tools) and sell it when done.
My gal ain't much of a voice controlled type when it comes to bead rolling, but man I can put her on hand sanding all day long and she loves it. When I did my F100 pickup engine bay, I just gave her a hand to climb into the empty engine bay and she dun sanded the two fender aprons and the whole of the firewall down to shinny metal ready for fresh paint.
I bought a Pro Tools bead roller kit back in the 90s. Works good, but don't get to use it as much as I would like.
Yeah, she does but sadly her nick name is the SARGENT and she is one tough customer. Not big but no fear and handy to have with you in a bar fight...