Home made ring roller, ongoing.
I made a garden fence at home just using bought in basic twists, cages etc, it would have been nice to add a few more items such as rings with inlays, make my own shapes et al. So I looked at a ring roller, now there are several out there one can buy, typically with everything in a frame where you pull the middle roller out to remove the completed ring, or another style with the rollers on the outside of the frame. This is the style I went for as I thought it could be more versatile.
So I looked around on the Internet and looked at various designs, all generally based on Pyramid rolls, I checked what unused materials I had around in the garage and settles on a design using 100 x 100 x 4 mm wall box section.
Without any drawings I just cut up the metal as shown below.
http://tamarisktechnicals.com/images...ingroller1.jpg
Cut at an angle of 28 degrees, basically because that angle still allowed me to get the box in the vice and cut on the band-saw. Then welded to make the two sections and then the bases milled flat so it should sit flat and level.
I had some CDS tube left over from the kit car build this has an internal diameter hole very slightly over 25mm, so as accurately as I could used the milling machine and 24 operations later had holes through the sides to fit the CDS tubes snugly into.
http://tamarisktechnicals.com/images...ingroller2.jpg
http://tamarisktechnicals.com/images...ingroller3.jpg
I had to spend money now and buy some EN8 25mm bar from a online metal shop, £14 for 1 metre. I was also looking at bearings for the rollers. I originally looked at some needle roller bearings, 25mm internal with internal sleeves and 32mm external diameter, but with prices it would cost quite a bit to get four of them I thought I would need, so I settled on budget rollers and picked up 10 bearings 25mm internal, 47mm external diameters for £10.
http://tamarisktechnicals.com/images...ingroller4.jpg
I visited an Engineering shop in Leyland and managed to get a length of 90 mm diameter EN3 bar for £10, and after some time on the lathe had my two idle rollers, they are 56mm wide.