# Bead Roller



## 682bear (Dec 18, 2016)

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.


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## BGHansen (Dec 18, 2016)

682bear said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


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


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## 682bear (Dec 18, 2016)

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.


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