Can anyone tell me about rolling mills????

F

Frontier Forge

Joined
Aug 25, 2002
Messages
138
Does any one have any usefull info about rolling mills. Im in the works of building one. I have bearings, a 75:1 gear reducers and am in the process of having the rolls milled up? My design is based on the Hugh Mcdonald design but Im using a Harbour freight porta power as a means to squeez the rollers together. After completing the roller will extrude metal @ 2.5 inches per second....If anyone has built one or used one ,write me about your experience
 
I have been using one of hugh mcdonalds early proto types. I helped make it with Jim STEELE, it works very well.
The mill is at my house for a couple of weeks while Jim is shifting house. (lucky me)Jim told me to use it, he did not have to say that twice.
THe only problem I had was operator error and poor set up. It was not near my anvil and it was raining outside my little shed.

The limitation I found was the bottom movable roller needs a bit more clearance front and back. It is hard to describe so send me an email address and I'll send what photos I have and a better description.(this offer open for any one)

Basically if you are inexperienced the metal can start to bend downwards as it rolls out toward you. In front of the roller there is a bracket for strength. Twice the bottom of the billet caught on the leading edge and ripped the welds open.
There is a tip, you want the mill to push the metal back toward you, not pull you in if you get anything caught. Fingers at 2.5 in per second.

I spoke to jim about the problem he assured me it is a bit of practice and possibly rolling when to cold.
I made 6 billets during the day I have done that with a ten pound hammer. The mill is great.

Something else to consider is a spare roller. The 2 parrallel rollers squirt the metal out length ways but not much side growth in width.

If you had a second roller with a convex curve it may be able to get some width. Depends how much time you wanted to spend bolting up.

Im sure someone else will say it start with wider stock.

I'll wait to get a message And Ill send some pics.

My email address has an under score not a space if you have problems.

reg_ellery@optusnet.com.au
 
I have worked on a couple of pictures in photo shop to help explain
the mods you may like to make. Ready when you are. Anyone feel free to
as for a set. I am not an expert and the machine works well as it is
these photos are of an early proto type and may have already been improved.
 
I've been collecting info on rollong mills to see if it would be a better option for me than a power hammer. I'd love to hear your opinion and see your pix.
 
I have sent of quite a few replys if anyone has had trouble recieving them send me another email I'll try again. I may have zigged when I should have zagged.

If any of you think they would be of any use on this post feel free to post them. I don,t know how to.
 
I made one a while ago with a gear reducer isntead of gearing it down with pulleys and gears. I thought that I was doing myself a favor, but the output torque on the reducer was significantly less than it should have been. Recently rebuilt it with pulleys and what not and it works much better. Unless your reducer is rated a lot higher than either of mine, I'd leave it for another project.

Mine is built from Hugh's plans. I really like it. It has a ton of power and makes for wonderfully straight patterns. Ladder patterns are beautiful too. I use it a lot of times to reduce round stock to bar stock.

There's only one thing that I would change, and that's the height. I followed the plans and discovered that Hugh must be shorter than me. I would have wanted it 4-5 inches taller.

I need to take more pictures of mine, so if there is anything specific, give a holler, I can get ya more pictures.

Jamie
www.polarbearforge.com
 
If you run the stock thru slightly on the diagonal wouldn't it widen it a little as well as lengthening it?
 
My gear reducer is a Cleavland gear box(big)75:1@1750rpm i think that works out to 25 rpm. The torque value is 1592 and Hp rating is .93 .
My plan was to hook up a 3/4 hp motor that turns @1140 rpm. That should run slow enough to not spit the metal out at me. Any thoughts....
 
The one I made had 8 1/4" diameter steel rollers and turn at about 40 rpm (17 inches per secon). I tried the small rollers and they would not feed and the metal would cool too fast. I made mine especially to roll 52100 round bar (1 3/4" dia.) down to flat bar for resale. The making of quality damascus was a wonderful bonus. I can grind patterns in the nice flat damascus before rerolling and am waiting on a couple of pattern rolls that are being made for me. I have a surface grinder that trues it up very good. For power, I use a six cylinder Chevrolet with standard transmission in low gear. The design requirements, I got from Daryl Meier of Carbondale, Il. He was very helpful, so much that I scrapped my small rolls and completely rebuilt. From thought to rolling steel took me about 18 months. If anyone wants to look at some of the steel, I will be in Mesquite, Tx this week end and will have some with me. You can see what it does and I can maybe explain it a little better.
Glad you got it working Jamie :).
 
There are some good and bad points in a rolling machine. The bad points is that it is difficult to regulate the reduction using a hydraulic cylinder and an 8 1/4" roller will grab the part and roll. If there is no give, it breaks :(. I spent about 3 weeks developing a system that would allow only a small amount of reduction at a time (about 1/8" or so at a time). I plan on making a press to work with it as it doesn't do edge rolling very well. It does do a high quality weld on the damascus billit and makes a very uniform pattern. I have made some ladder pattern with it by grinding and rerolling. I haven't tried the raindrop with it yet.
Larger rollers and a faster speed will make better damascus as it is not in contact with the rollers very long (1/4 second) and it squeezes down more instead of back.

Mike, I am bringing some of the steel with me to Guthrie also. Next week, I have to get back to working on knives :).
 
Im not sure what you are saying will break, but with the set up jim put on hughs machine he has chain and cog drive at the work end but v belts on the motor and in the reduction area. if you get a jam the belts slip to give a safty release effect.

I will remove the side cover next time my friend is around with his digital camera.

Also if you do put the metal diagonal you do get a bit of width.
 
ELLERY,
I don't have v-belts and what I broke was chains (no. 50), sprockets, and 1 7/16" end bearings. That was because I took too much at a time (3/8") and didn't have good control on the amount of reduction and didn't realize how hot it needed to be.
Everything is just great now that I have learned to use it and know its limitations.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top