liquidh8 said:
Nice to have the room to be able to set your metal shaping tools up permanently. My sh*t has to get tucked off into the corner till I use it. I need a bigger garage and a smaller house. 😀
LMAO,
here I am bumming out that I dont have the room for a real proper size work shop. I had to make the work bench so darn narrow so it wouldnt stick out past the door opining and cut into floor space!
well it seems Im spending more time working on tools than cars!
I bought a woodward fab bead roller thinking that the little extra paid would get me a better quality unit than harbor freight.
The woodward fab part number is #WFBR6
After using it once or twice and seeing Covell's presentation on his bead rolling basics DVD I came to the conclusion that this unit is just as poor quality as the harbor freight one. It also appears who ever assembled it from the factory scored up the bearings very badly.
Normally I would not bad mouth a company but I have contacted them to see if they would allow me to return it for store credit so I could step up to a better quality unit, they said I was SOL...
So attempting to make the best of the situation (after all it did come with 6 dies that if bought separately would be way more then the price I paid) I have decided to take some of covells tips and tricks to improve this unit.
Please note I am obviously a novice and this unit in the proper hands is probably not as bad as I make it seem. Also the improvements I plan on making to it are based on covell's bead rolling basics DVD. I am not an expert, I am not trying to pretend I am, I just feel the need to document the improvements in case anyone else finds themselves in the same situation.
The Issues I have with the unit that I hope to address:
- When you roll a bead the body has a tendency to twist and deflect causing an uneven appearance to the bead.
- Mittler brother dies have a smaller diameter hole in the center and a larger outer diameter
- The hand crank is very difficult to use while you feed the material into the machine (especially for me as I am still recovering from a shoulder surgery)
- The unit clamps into a bench vice nicely but in order to clamp it to a table you have to remove your entire bench vice, clamp that to the table, then clamp the unit into the vice.
- The pressure adjusting screw requires a wrench to operate
- The top roller needs to be lifted each time you load or unload material
- There is not provisions for a material guide so maintaining a straight line is near impossible (I suspect the hand crank, and body flex are also contributing factors)
