dozerbuilder01
Well-known member
A few weeks ago, I added a porch on to my house. Wife's request. If I ever want that bigger garage in the future, this was necessary.
So now the wife wanted a porch swing. And I've always wanted a reason to build a ring roller. Perfect.
I basically built it out of scrap I had around (except the bearings). And I overbuilt it. It happens. I just kind of designed it as I went.
Cut out side plates with a torch and cleaned them up on the mill. This would have been a good time to build that CNC plasma cutter but need more $$$. Would have saved a lot of time on the plates.
The rollers are 2.5" OD and 3" wide with a 3/4" shaft. The shaft will be the weak point. It happens. And I'm using needle bearings. Why 3" wide? It's what I had. And should be enough for what I'll need.
As I said, I didn't have much of a plan. It was built around a 12 ton bottle jack. Overkill but I had it.
As with all of my projects, it lets me practice welding without wasting.
Here it is.
And first up was a handle. You'll see the finished wheel later on. (should have made it a bigger diameter but it was the first thing I made on it).
It worked well. It rolled the 1/2" tubing very easily. Only problem is that it tracked all over the place which I expected. I tried doing some bumpers which you may see in some other pictures, but I don't like it. And I don't feel like milling out grooves. And locking collars are too expensive. So I dug deep into the pile of scrap and found a 2.5" ID 3.75" OD piece of tube (seen in a picture above). So I'll make my own later. For what I needed to do at this time, it worked fine.
So now the wife wanted a porch swing. And I've always wanted a reason to build a ring roller. Perfect.
I basically built it out of scrap I had around (except the bearings). And I overbuilt it. It happens. I just kind of designed it as I went.
Cut out side plates with a torch and cleaned them up on the mill. This would have been a good time to build that CNC plasma cutter but need more $$$. Would have saved a lot of time on the plates.
The rollers are 2.5" OD and 3" wide with a 3/4" shaft. The shaft will be the weak point. It happens. And I'm using needle bearings. Why 3" wide? It's what I had. And should be enough for what I'll need.
As I said, I didn't have much of a plan. It was built around a 12 ton bottle jack. Overkill but I had it.
As with all of my projects, it lets me practice welding without wasting.
Here it is.
And first up was a handle. You'll see the finished wheel later on. (should have made it a bigger diameter but it was the first thing I made on it).
It worked well. It rolled the 1/2" tubing very easily. Only problem is that it tracked all over the place which I expected. I tried doing some bumpers which you may see in some other pictures, but I don't like it. And I don't feel like milling out grooves. And locking collars are too expensive. So I dug deep into the pile of scrap and found a 2.5" ID 3.75" OD piece of tube (seen in a picture above). So I'll make my own later. For what I needed to do at this time, it worked fine.
