made bead roller dies on my lathe

[rsanter]

so I have a bead roller that was made for me as a gift by a good friend. he knew I had been wanting one and was building one for himself so he built two instead.
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a little paint and finish work on my part and I have a nice machine that its design is based on the LAZZE bead roller (which is the rolls Royce of bead rollers)

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the problem was that I was trying to use the dies from the HF beadroller I started with (by using a spacer with them)

so it was time I made my own dies for the beadroller because Im too much of a cheap *** to pay $80 to $150 a pair for the dies, and after all I have a couple of lathes so I can use them to save me some money.

some of you may also remember the thread I started showing the radius turner/ball turner that I made:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=295091
this was made for the purpose of making the dies I wanted for my beadroller

for the last couple of weekends this is what I have been making
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I know its not the 'full set' I want to have yet but its a start so I can get some pieces made that I am needing. as I play with the bead roller I am sure I will come up with a few more die profiles that I will want

bob

 

[astroracer]

Nice job! I know my lathes have paid for themselves many times over with work like this.
now, show us what you can do with them...
Mark

 

[Bobf]

Very nice job by your buddy on the machine and yourself on the dies. Those look very smooth and polished and should work very well. I have one of the HF rollers and the dies are very coarse which leave scratches in soft metal such as AL making floor boards etc. I spent considerable time smoothing/polishing to make them usable.

 

[ilovevocs]

This has been a project on the back burner for me for quite some time. I polished all the crappy HF dies on my lathe. Made mandrel to hold them and just polished them up. Very nice work you and your friend have done.

Seems like you have allot of dies their but its hard to tell which ones are sets. Maybe just not the profiles i'm used to seeing or your doing allot of tipping with a soft wheel?

My sheet metal skills are not on par with some of the guys here so excuse my ignorance if that is the case. Its a skill I'm attempting to refine but it also requires tools, lots of tools.

 

[22george]

Part of the reason l bought a lathe is to do exactly what you are doing. What grade of metal are you using for the dies. I'm a novice at this also so my terminology may be wrong. I saw your other thread on the radius/ball turner and appreciate the info

 

[rsanter]

This has been a project on the back burner for me for quite some time. I polished all the crappy HF dies on my lathe. Made mandrel to hold them and just polished them up. Very nice work you and your friend have done.

Seems like you have allot of dies their but its hard to tell which ones are sets. Maybe just not the profiles i'm used to seeing or your doing allot of tipping with a soft wheel?

My sheet metal skills are not on par with some of the guys here so excuse my ignorance if that is the case. Its a skill I'm attempting to refine but it also requires tools, lots of tools.

the dies are kind of paired into sets of sorts. the die pairs to the left go on the bottom. the roundover dies stacked on the right go on the top to go with them.
then you have the offset dies on the right rear and then the set of three beveled dies are for tipping or for doing sharp beading.
I still need to make round over dies but I didn't need then right now so they are some of the next ones to be made

bob

 

[nine4gmc]

Tagged to ask a lot of dumb questions later!

 

[youngnstudly]

SWEET!!! I wish I had even one set of rounding over dies! What material did you use to make your dies from? I take it your bead roller uses the 20mm shaft/die size like Lazze's does? I bet it's nice having a buddy like that around for occasions like this!

 

[bczygan]

Making tools with tools....Very nice!

 

[Skyline]

Just curious how you machine the key notch?

 

[rsanter]

Just curious how you machine the key notch?

Keyway broach. I was able to get a bairly used German set off of eBay for $80

Bob

 

[rsanter]

SWEET!!! I wish I had even one set of rounding over dies! What material did you use to make your dies from? I take it your bead roller uses the 20mm shaft/die size like Lazze's does? I bet it's nice having a buddy like that around for occasions like this!

I used some steel I had around. I don't know the exact material.
I was looking into hardening it but after playing around I'm not really sure I will need to.

Yes it uses the 20mm shaft with the 6mm keyway

Bob

 

[LXCam]

Excellent job on both the dies and the roller!.

 

[toms73novass]

does your friend have plans/build thread on the roller?

 

[ilovevocs]

the dies are kind of paired into sets of sorts. the die pairs to the left go on the bottom. the roundover dies stacked on the right go on the top to go with them.
then you have the offset dies on the right rear and then the set of three beveled dies are for tipping or for doing sharp beading.
I still need to make round over dies but I didn't need then right now so they are some of the next ones to be made

bob

Thanks for the response.

Dan

 

[rsanter]

does your friend have plans/build thread on the roller?

He may have a build thread on MetalMeet.com

Bob

 

[Guster]

He may have a build thread on MetalMeet.com

Bob

Would love to read the article if you have a link to it.

 

[INTMD8]

Awesome! They look very nice.

 

[wyo george]

Thanks for sharing, it's on my list to build a roller, but I keep putting it off to work on other stuff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LukasM]

This is an awesome looking machine, especially if it's home built!

Did anybody manage to find the build thread of this or another Lazze style bead roller?

Cheers,
Lukas

 

[fiftyv8]

Nice work and it must be nice to access to both a good lathe and decent bar stock for the purpose.

What diameter dies are you running, they look to be larger than the usual 2" items?

I got a homemade bead roller and set it up around the supply of 2" dies, but now wish that I had gone to a larger diameter die.

I have small old lathe that is capable of producing dies but it tales a month of Sundays between the old lathe and my ability to get multiple items done is not an attractive proposition.

 

[EdT]

I saw a Lazze roller at a seminar I went to. Nice machine with a VFD on a 3 phase gear-head TEFC motor. The problem I saw was that for most actual bead rolling the motor was running at nearly as slow as it would go. If used for a long time the motor will overheat because the cooling fan is not very effective at low speeds. Do you have any specs on the motor on your machine?

 

[rsanter]

I saw a Lazze roller at a seminar I went to. Nice machine with a VFD on a 3 phase gear-head TEFC motor. The problem I saw was that for most actual bead rolling the motor was running at nearly as slow as it would go. If used for a long time the motor will overheat because the cooling fan is not very effective at low speeds. Do you have any specs on the motor on your machine?

I can get the specs from mine, I did choose to re-gear mine so that the motor runs faster while the machine still runs slow.
I like it better now and I think it is smoother as well.

So I have the option to go back if I have a job needing more speed (not sure what that would be) I set the chain and the gear aside to I can swap it back on in just a few min.

 

[rsanter]

Nice work and it must be nice to access to both a good lathe and decent bar stock for the purpose.

What diameter dies are you running, they look to be larger than the usual 2" items?

I got a homemade bead roller and set it up around the supply of 2" dies, but now wish that I had gone to a larger diameter die.

I have small old lathe that is capable of producing dies but it tales a month of Sundays between the old lathe and my ability to get multiple items done is not an attractive proposition.

Mine is set up for the typical 2” dies. It will actually take the Lazzie dies but I choose to make my own. It was made to use the lazzie dies just in case I ever need to buy some specific dies, then I can

What I do is cut a bunch of pieces of stock and then drill and broach them.
Then I have ‘blanks’ I can start from.
I then make dies as I need them or if I just get the whim to make a specific shape

 

[fiftyv8]

Thanks for your reply.
I asked because in your earlier pic's they looked bigger in diameter than 2".
Then again some will be depending on what they are designed for I guess.
I wish I had set mine unit up for larger dies.
Not too large but just larger than 2" I feel it is a little more flexible with a slight increase in diameter.
However for now I will continue to run with 2" at least until I find a newer lathe and the motivation to make every die.

 

[GeriB]

Hello together

I am new in this forum. My name is Gerhard an I am living in the western part of Austria closed to the lake of constance. In my free time I am working on some metal- and electronic projects.

Studying some metal shaping projects I found this cool beading machine. I seems that the upper shaft can be adjusted horizontally for getting more flexibility in building different shapes but I do not get it how did they realize it. It seems that it is solved very easily My construction ideas are all very complicated

If some of you could explain me how it works, it would be very fine

Thanks in advance

Geri

 

[rsanter]

Yes, the upper shaft position can be adjusted horizontally to set the dies how you can’t them. This can give different effects from the same dies and can adjust for different metal thicknesses.
It is also needed with the type of dies I use as my dies are not a single top and bottom matched pair

 

[GeriB]

Hello Bob

Thank you for your response! I would be interested in how the horizontal adjustment of the upper shaft is realized form the construction point of view.

On one side, the shaft has to be driven over a chain or a gear, it is equipped with bearings on the other hand, the shaft can be moved and turned some degrees.

I made a small sketch of my current construction but I believe it can be done much easier.


Best regards

Geri

 

[rsanter]

I did not make this bead roller, it was made by a friend if mine who gifted it to me.
There are several ways to accomplish this, but the easiest way I know of is to have a long and short gear on the shafts.
Long gear on the drive shaft and a short gear on the driven shaft.
I am fairly sure he was able to buy some pre-made gear shaft stock that was then cut to length and installed on the shafts.

The other way would be a system like used in a drill press where you have an internal and external spline that will move in relation to one another

 

[GeriB]

Hi Bob

At first, I wish you a happy new year!

Thank you also for the hints. I also made a construction with a long gear but thought I will not work because of the clearance but probably if the module of the gear is large enough it will be no problem.

Thanks and best regards

Geri