Thanks Paco, I appreciate the feedback. Shop is coming together and I LOVE working in my new shop. If I didn't have to sleep I would spend every waking minute out there.
My bead roller is a Mitler Bros. powered unit but I wouldn't exactly call it light, it is still quite heavy and awkward to move around but works out much better for me where I have it somewhat portable and don't have to have it set up all the time. It originally had a stand where it either could be bolted to the ground or a roll cart but when I purchased it I cut the base off and welded the flat strap on it to clamp to the welding table and I could store it by hanging it on the wall vs. on the floor in the corner of the shop somewhere. I may build a hitch stub to fit into a 2" receiver and then weld another receiver or two under my welding table. I like the height that it is when used at my welding table vs. my work benches so I doubt I will use it at the benches.
I really haven't used it too much in the past couple of years but back when I was racing and building sand rails I used it a lot for building fuel tanks, coolant tanks, aluminum side panels, etc. and really like the fact that it is powered. The footswitch is a rheostat so the speed can be varied somewhat which is nice for turning corners or even bead rolling flames into a panel. My buddy has a Pexto manual unit which is a very high end roller but where you have to crank the handle it becomes very cumbersome to use in my opinion. On small panels such as fuel tanks the manual one works fine but on long parts like the side panels to a sandrail that are 6-8 feet in length the manual one really needs two people to make a smooth uniform bead and not look jagged or notched on curves. The powered one is so nice and smooth to do curves with. Even small parts such as tank rolls I still like the powered unit for ease and fluid movements.
Thanks for the comments Paco.
Mike
