24" Plate type Bead Roller

This is a typical plate style bead roller that are made in China and sold and many different brands. Mine I bought from The Old Tin and Tool Company.

One of the things on a manual roller it is easier to turn a wheel rather than the crank handle they come with when by yourself. Normally they use an old steering wheel but I had given away my old Willys one, so thought maybe a Jeep wheel instead. The bead roller shaft is only 25 mm and didn't have any pipe that size so slowing filed out a threaded pipe collar to fit. But now have to make up the difference in size between the wheel and the pipe. So I cut down an old wheel hub off the Jeep and will weld the pipe to the back of it.

Cut the wheel centre off the rim. These don't join in the well like most so was able to keep as much diameter as possible. The hub flange was welded on to the collar and a nut too. Tapped through the nut into the collar for a bit of extra strength. Can see the simple stand I made too so it clamps into my portable vice at the right height.

Other things I did was add a spring from a bed base to pull up the top shaft to make getting the sheet in and out easier. Can also see I got rid of the little adjusting screw and drilled and tapped the steel for a bigger old spare wheel hold down screw. Made my own fence/guide for is as well. Has a removable centre section held down with thumb screws for when you are behind the pillow blocks.

The guide is tool less as well as used a fastener from some gym equipment I found thrown away. Always grab them when I see them. Using pieces cut from the 58 Willys chassis rails, I reinforced the bead roller main plate. Before I could twist the ends of it with just my fingers! I placed the reinforcement pieces over the shafts so that the roller is not made any wider, which will be handy if rolling any tube etc.

Made my own tipping dies using a roller skate wheel, which happen to have the hole size the same as the shaft, where the bearing was. Just pushed in a thick washer on the outside of the wheel. The top die was just a hardened large washer I had. May have come from an old 70's Range Rover front top shock mount or the chassis end of the radius arm? Had to make a little sleeve to match the bolt size. This setup will allow me to bend a flange on a curve. The wheel centre was fitted with the dish facing inwards to make the reach less when working it by yourself. Fitted the handle after drilling and tapping the wheel and using a lock nut on the back to hold it. Will come in handy when the wife is turning the wheel. Strangely I prefer to pull the wheel towards me when feeding the metal through the rollers so I switched the shafts so it ran that way.

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