Bead Roller

[682bear]

Back in the summer, I was replacing the floor pans in a 1964 Fairlane. I had bought repop pans, but they were very poor quality, so I decided to fabricate my own.

I ordered a Woodward Fab bead roller, but it was too flimsy to roll 18 ga mild steel without a lot of deflection, and very awkward to use with the hand crank.



I stripped the frame and welded stiffening gussets to the back to strengthen it.



Then I fabricated a stand to mount it on.



I replaced the crank with a sprocket and chain running to a gear reduction box that I had found at a yard sale. I attached a Harbor Freight drill to power it. The drill plugs into an outlet box on back of the stand. The outlet box plugs into a wall outlet, and is switched through a foot pedal.



I lock the trigger on the drill, and can use both hands to guide the sheet metal through the rollers. I can also reverse it with the drill....

It works pretty well... and the floor pans turned out pretty decent.

 

[BGHansen]

Back in the summer, I was replacing the floor pans in a 1964 Fairlane. I had bought repop pans, but they were very poor quality, so I decided to fabricate my own.

I ordered a Woodward Fab bead roller, but it was too flimsy to roll 18 ga mild steel without a lot of deflection, and very awkward to use with the hand crank.

View attachment 141655

I stripped the frame and welded stiffening gussets to the back to strengthen it.

View attachment 141657

Then I fabricated a stand to mount it on.

View attachment 141658

I replaced the crank with a sprocket and chain running to a gear reduction box that I had found at a yard sale. I attached a Harbor Freight drill to power it. The drill plugs into an outlet box on back of the stand. The outlet box plugs into a wall outlet, and is switched through a foot pedal.

View attachment 141660

I lock the trigger on the drill, and can use both hands to guide the sheet metal through the rollers. I can also reverse it with the drill....

It works pretty well... and the floor pans turned out pretty decent.

Great work! I made a road trip to Woodward Fab a couple of weeks ago, scary place to go! They have a very nice demo area where you can try out most of their offerings. I went with intentions of buying one item, left with two. Almost left with a shrinker/stretcher after playing with them.

I'm assuming the foot switch is a dead man's set up. Step on for power, step off to stop; nice thought. I've got the HF version of their bead roller and find the manual handle a hassle also. Thanks for the idea for amping it up!

Bruce

 

[682bear]

You are correct about the pedal... even with the speed reduction between the gearbox and the reduction with the sprockets, it still runs fairly quickly... with the pedal, I can 'bump' it through as slowly as I need to.