Harbor freight beadrollers are fine tools after reinforcementing it.Here is a lot of threads about HF beadrollers,dies etc.I havent found any thread for the guide fence yet for these beadrollers.Guide fence is good to have,when rolling straight beads.I've found them for sale around 80 bucks,but cheap bastard like me wont never spend a 80 bucks for a tool that you can fabricate 100% from the scrap. So here we go: I found some angle iron left overs and made the fence frame of that: I made few notches,so the guide will move freely in the throat. The most important part is to weld the angle irons in 90 degree angle,otherwise your beads may look like a bit weird because the fence is not mounted straight to the beadroller. I did some test fitting and it seems to be ok,there is enought room for the axles too. It needs something to get it clamped to the beadroller,so i butchered one crappy G-clamp and used the axle and some of the G-clamp frame on this project. So here is the finished guide fence... And it looks like it works too.I think this will make some of the beadroller work a bit faster than it used to be.
I need one of these. Have you got a shot back a bit so I can see the overall of the roller and fence?
Good to hear that those pics were useful.That steering wheel is from 40-50's bus or a truck.I bought it yrs ago and its been mounted to the beadroller since i got it.
Yeah,you definetely should convert yours.It turns beadrolling to the different level.Its a lot easier to roll it back,if it looks like its going to the wrong tracks and needs less power than crank.The foot operated,electric motor powered beadroller is the best choice,you dont have to hire a roller slave.Its just real bitch to use muscle powered beadroller by yourself.
Did you take the shafts and rest of the mechanism and dies from the Harbor Freight/Central Machinery machine? It's obvious that frame isn't going to flex! Awesome job on the machine and the fence!
It doesnt look like it,but it is the Harbor Freight beadroller.I just welded more stuff around it.Without any reinforcement,its really flexible and its almost impossible to form decent beads with that. I've used the HF dies,but i found most of them useless,so i have modified them or made my own like this: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=566973
That looks great. I like what you did with your HF roller. That's what i am doing to mine. Thanks for the pictures.
I saw how you modified the original tool in the die thread. The dies you made in the die thread made the new floor panels look like they were there from the factory. Great work!
I MUST add a guide like that to my HF-type roller too. I did make a wheel that replaced the origional crank on mine. I made a form, 3/4" plywood, 18" in diamter. Anchored it to my workbench and got a piece (10') steel conduit and formed the conduit around the plywood form until I had a complete circle. It took a little doing but I got it done OK. (It even came out pretty straight and didn't collapse the tubing either.) I then welded the two ends together to complete the "O". With some of the left-over conduit, I made two cross pieces, welded them onto the O for a 4" square piece of 3/16" flat steel was welded where the center cross pieces cross one another. I put the center support in a press, smashed the cross memeber just enough so the square was touching each of the cross bars and welded the center square to the cross pieces. I then took a short piece of 1" diameter (inside) pipe, THICK WALLED, drilled a 1/4" + hole in the center of the pipe and welded a 1/4" nut over the hole. This will serve to be able to "lock" the wheel onto the driveshaft of the roller. Tighten the lock-nut down onto the flat-spot on driveshaft of the roller and roll-away. It's a lot easier than the crank ever was! I built the completed wheel for less than $5.00........
Looks like you put some time and hard work in that wheel.I just put an add to the finnish website.Lazy bastard rides again
We've been talking about making a guide like this for ours too, Ours is a Protools brand but what you did would adapt to that one too. Great idea, and I like the clamp for being able to move it exactly where you need it to be. Thanks for posting this thread. Don
Thank you! I am glad if someone got ideas from this thread. I should have done this really long time ago.The floorpan job was a kind of hell without any guide.
Thanks fellows! Here is a door bottom replacement piece i made for my shoebox. Copying the profile of original one was done by beadroller.It saved some time and cigarets because of the fence.
Finnrodder, we were talking last night about stealing your ideas and making our own fence. One question, does the sheetmetal slide smoothly along the fence or does it ever have a tendancy to catch ? We wondered if you did anything to smooth out the fence or if it just worked well as is. Don
Great tech, I especially like the C-clamp type screw locking device which allows the fence to be moved easily back and forth on the throat. Looks like I got a project for tomorrow. Thanks
Nope,i didnt do anything to get the fence smoothed.Only thing i smoothed was the notches on the frame,so it moves nicely in the throat. The sheetmetal moves nicely,but it must be cut straight from the side that is against the fence.I guess thats the key with beadrolling with fence.
Very good, thank you. I have a couple of bent up C clamps and will sacrifice one to do what you did. Don
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