vertical roller machine

[Old N Rusty]

I have a contract that calls for radiuses (sp) in 1/2 " solid steel square bar. Many Pieces, I think a roller type machine with 2 fixed, powered, reversible rollers,and one adjustable rising vertically through a table, might be what I need. Anyone know of particular brand names and , of course advise from IFI 's bottomless well of knowledge, will be appreciated. 3 phase 240 volts is my shop power. thanks.

[macbruce]

You mean on the corners of the 1/2'' bars.....If so a power hammer would be my first choice. About how many?

[John B]

I have a contract that calls for radiuses (sp) in 1/2 " solid steel square bar. Many Pieces, I think a roller type machine with 2 fixed, powered, reversible rollers,and one adjustable rising vertically through a table, might be what I need. Anyone know of particular brand names and , of course advise from IFI 's bottomless well of knowledge, will be appreciated. 3 fase 240 volts is my shop power. thanks.

Bit more info wouldn't go amiss, actual radius size required, depth of groove, pitch of grooves, length of materail for job, accuracy needed, quantities, finish required for starters may shed some light ,

All could be accommodated on a fly press, hydraulic press, ring roller type machine with embossing rolls, power hammer, milling machine, shaper, lathe, you got the job you know the potentials (including difficulties), they all have their place,

so, A little more information please.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Be pretty hard to use grooving rolls on square bar.

[Old N Rusty]

More info : bend a 24" semi circle done in 1/2" H.R. square bar. to lay flat on table in a jig. A rolling machine that can do this is what I need for, many different radiused pieces, repeatable, and no twisting. hope that helps.

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Rolling half-rings, ah! There are some cheap hand-powered rolls out there. Remember; it won't roll the first and last couple inches. If you need it perfect you need to cut a little off the ends after rolling. Also, you usually want to roll them a little tight and adjust open rather than even attempting the other way around.

[Glenn]

I/2 inch square can be bent by hand (laborious but it works). Just set up the jig and get started. This holds the jig stationary and moves the bar.

Better method would be to hold the bar and move the jig. This sucks the bar into the bend as the jig moves.

You do not say how many pieces are needed. If the job will offset the cost of a machine, look for a machine that can do many other things so it can become a useful tool not a one off project.

One suggestion to accompany Grants comments on using a longer than needed bar due to the short straight sections left on the ends. Make the bend beyond the length needed and use this extra length as the starting point of the next bend. This requires cutting individual pieces (bends) from the parent stock. If you go for production, then precut the stock to length, bend, then trim to size.

This reply was directed toward the individual wanting to bend a low volume of pieces. I needed a 6-8 inch diameter, a 2 inch diameter and a 90 degree bend for different projects. I used both method one and two above and bent 1/2 round bar (by hand) as fast as you could feed it into the jigs.

[Old N Rusty]

I have seen such a set up in pipe bending shops, three roller system. the pipe is fed into the bender horizontally and is radiussed in a controlled bend held in semicircular dies the diameter of which and the middle roller adjusts the degree of bend. I envision a table with three square shafts sticking up two side by side and one to move toward and away from the middle, in a slot, like it was welded to a large machinist vise under the the table there would be 1/2 " thick circles with a square hole in the middle. The power is there to roll the two side by side rollers and is reversible, The distance between the two disks is calculated so a short piece of 1/2" square bar is fed into one side and is "grabbed " by the far roller to start the bend certainly there will be some unbent sections on each end but this is the top of an arch and the unbent sections would facilitate fabrication in a jig. many more are needed than I could bend by hand,between two pieces of round bar welded to the side of my table.

[SmoothBore]

Google "Baileigh Industrial" and look at their manual and mechanical Profile Benders.

I've bent a 6" radius, on 3/4" round, #304 stainless bar, on a "home made" version of their manual "post" type bender.

It's just a stationary ring of slightly less than the desired diameter, and a long handle, pivoted at the center of the stationary ring, ... with an adjustable cam follower on the handle.

For a 24" diameter, I'd look for a side ring, from a 22.5" split rim, to use for a stationary ring.


Bending bar stock is a lot easier than bending tubing, ... and the simple manual bender is very fast.

.

[Astro_Al]

Just buy a ring roller (also known as section bender). I have a BPR bender, sold under the name Eagle in the States. Look up Trick-tools / van-sant Ent - they sell them over there. Good quality machines. There are plenty of good makes out there, Italian or Scandanavian seem to be best - Roundo, Ercolina etc etc. there are also plenty of Chinese copies which I would try to avoid.

You can roll a complete length of stock into a spiral of the right diameter, then just cut them all apart for an easy way to make a lot of rings.

Cheers, Al.

[Fosterob]

Hebo is what all the others try to copy if I remember correctly. They are nice machines but $$$.
Rob

[Norseman C.B.]

You might check out the Simonian bender on U tube and make a similar one or buy one from him
it looks pretty versatile........

[ThomasPowers]

For a silly suggestion: mount an appropriate piece of round stock---heavy walled pipe would do---vertically outside and put a catch on it near the base. Heat 20' of stock and place one end in the catch and run around the post 3+ times pulling it tight as you go. Cut the resulting coil on two sides for nice semicircles.

Now if I had to do a lot of these I might rig up a system that would *turn* the system slowly and a roller to press the stock against the pipe and a tunnel forge to heat the stock as it reaches the bending point. Or more likely figure out the spring back, adjust the central round size and beef everything up and do it cold.

[Jim Kehler]

When I was at the railway we had the millwrights build us a table about 30" sq. with a hole in the middle, underneath the table was a 5 HP motor with a severe gear reduction giving us about 60 RPM this ended in a square socket that went through the hole flush with the table top. We put various dia. jigs into the socket and had some threaded holes in the table to hold rollers. Bent a lot of 1" round with this set-up(hot). 1/2" wouldn't take nearly as much power.

[BM454]

A friend of mine builds chairs out of half inch HR round stock. He uses one of these table benders and it seems to work very well. He has a small die in the machine at the moment but, it works well with larger bends as well.

Scott

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