Lathes, mills, and bandsaws all make it easy to cut thin flat bar stock. However, until recently bending and rolling thin bar stock required an expensive Sheet Metal Roller; but after discovering steel fence connectors and stock rollers he could create his tool with relative ease - thus producing an easy but effective bending and rolling machine!
What You Will Need
Metal fabrication is an invaluable skill, and there are plenty of tools available that will allow you to transform sheet and plate stock into different shapes. Lathes, mills, bandsaws, and dropsaws are ideal tools for milling raw materials into shapes that suit their purposes; bandsaws can cut them up into smaller pieces too. But for more complicated curves a slip roll might be required for more efficient shaping of materials - though their purchase or rental could prove more expensive than expected.
[James Bruton] realized this when he went shopping for one and found them to be prohibitively costly, so he set about building his version at a fraction of the price using steel fence posts and connectors as the main body, set screws to secure everything, and turnbuckles for tensioning purposes.
A three-roller bending machine, more commonly referred to as a "rounder", is an important piece of metalworking machinery that enables users to create circular shapes from flat pieces of metal plate by shifting relative positions of two working rollers and creating plastic deformation, giving a desired shape to them.
Materials
Sheet metal can be formed into various shapes using various techniques, but for curved shapes, the most effective means is using a rolling machine known as a slip roller. Slip rollers are essential pieces of fabrication equipment used to form shapes such as cylinders, circles, and cones out of sheet metals including mild steel, aluminum, and even stainless steel. They come in various sizes that make them easy to use when fabricating metal structures.
Machines for fabrication shops can be costly. Additionally, their operation requires significant skill and can be difficult for those just starting or those lacking much experience. Luckily, there are cheaper and simpler ways of rolling metal; one method involves using a vise with a metal pipe to slowly bend it into shape - though this method might require trial-and-error until one finds their groove.
Building your homemade machine is another option available to those just getting into fabrication, especially those just beginning. While creating something accurate enough for production may prove challenging, with proper experimentation and planning it's achievable.
To create your roller, you will require some basic materials. James chose the box section as the main material of his machine since this was what was lying around, using pillow block bearings on each shaft to reduce friction, as well as sliding frames with adjustable pressure on them to place on workpieces as they're being rolled - this enables users to roll parts with uneven leading or trailing edges more quickly than hand bending alone.
There are various types of metal rollers on the market, each offering different advantages and disadvantages. 2-cylinder rollers work best for small projects involving thin metals; three-cylinder rollers offer greater versatility when handling thicker materials. They can be operated manually or with motor power and some even come equipped with wire grooves for bending solid rods.
Design
Roller bender machines are manually powered three-shaft metal bending equipment used for shaping sheet metal plates into round forms. It typically consists of two lower working rollers and one upper working roller that are displaceable to cause plastic bending deformation to take place during their processes. James constructed his tool from the box section as that was what was lying around; stock fence connectors serve as fasteners and bushings on bearing shafts while turnbuckles provide tension tensioning of all sorts for tightness control - the results look promising, which you can watch after the jump!
Build
Sheet metal can be utilized in numerous ways for fabrication and construction purposes. Its forms may be formed via laser cutting, press brake forming and water jet cutting; rolling is one of the most versatile techniques used to form thin flat metal plates into different shapes such as curved cylinders and cones. Due to the expense associated with metal rolling machines however, DIYers have taken to making their own rollers at home.
The basic machine is straightforward and can be constructed from materials readily available at local hardware stores. The main body consists of a box section that was chosen because [James] already had lying around; pillow block bearings serve as rollers held securely with set screws to keep everything from shifting around; and finally, a 10-ton bottle jack provides pressure needed to bend metal plates gently into shape.
One of the most versatile metal roller designs available is a two-cylinder metal roller. This style uses two large cylindrical rollers to bend a plate into its desired shape while smaller steel rollers apply force between them, making this type of metal roller ideal for multiple applications and simple operation.
Another type of metal roller is the 3-roll variable pitch machine, which utilizes three rolling wheels to shape metal plates into an arc or curve. It is often found in boiler, shipbuilding, chemical processing plants, metal structure manufacturing facilities and machinery production industries. It consists of two active rollers on either end as well as one upper roll that can move vertically up and down for easy rolling action.
Slip rollers are another user-friendly metal bending option available to hobbyists looking to bend metal without special CNC press brake equipment. Consisting of two front rolls stacked nearly on top of each other and an adjustable back bending roll to control the degree of an arc created, slip rollers can be purchased for an economical price and provide hobbyists with an opportunity to experiment with creating curves without investing in full bending machines just yet.