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Rolling Mill
I'm thinking of buying a rolling mill. I want to use the mill to produce
texture and pattern on sheet and strip silver (and other metals). I'd also want to use it to taper wire or at least begin/speed up the process of hand forging. I've read around the subject and looked at websites and catalogues but have not had the luxury of actually getting my hands on one to get the feel of the equipment in use. I think this could be a really useful piece of equipment for me and I'm willing to spend something between £500 and £1000 if I have to. One of my dilemmas is how useful am I going to find a model with lots of wire grooves? and will I need to build up more bits of equipment like draw plates to get best use out of the mill. So, in brief do I get a basic but solid, rugged rolling mill that will handle the tasks of texturing and tapering well but not too much else, ordo I spend more and buy a machine with lots of grooves etc, etc. All contributions to my decision making will be gratefully received, and just in case it makes a difference to any responses, I'm in the UK. Regards - Kendall |
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#2
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Rolling Mill
Kendall Davies wrote:
I'm thinking of buying a rolling mill. I want to use the mill to produce texture and pattern on sheet and strip silver (and other metals). I'd also want to use it to taper wire or at least begin/speed up the process of hand forging. I've read around the subject and looked at websites and catalogues but have not had the luxury of actually getting my hands on one to get the feel of the equipment in use. I think this could be a really useful piece of equipment for me and I'm willing to spend something between £500 and £1000 if I have to. One of my dilemmas is how useful am I going to find a model with lots of wire grooves? and will I need to build up more bits of equipment like draw plates to get best use out of the mill. So, in brief do I get a basic but solid, rugged rolling mill that will handle the tasks of texturing and tapering well but not too much else, or do I spend more and buy a machine with lots of grooves etc, etc. All contributions to my decision making will be gratefully received, and just in case it makes a difference to any responses, I'm in the UK. Regards - Kendall A small, hand cranked, rolling mill was the first major piece of equipment I purchased over 30 years ago. I even opened a special bank account in which I saved up to buy it; I called it the Mill account, and its still in use today. The mill has only 2 rollers, 2.5" diam and 4.5" wide, divided into a 2.25" flat area and a 2.25" area with 12 grooves. It is still very much in use and is, without doubt, indispensable. On occasion I have found the 2.25" flat a bit restrictive, but given the choice of the current set-up or just a 4.5" flat without grooves, I would go for the current set-up. The grooves are extremely useful. 2.5" diam rolls are better than 2" ones because, like large wheels on rough ground, they make life easier. If you can afford it, a double decker, 2x flat and 2x grooves, would be even better than my set-up. I too am in UK, and I purchased my mill from H.Walsh and Son of Clerkenwell, all those years ago. -- Regards, Gary Wooding (To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address) |
#3
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Rolling Mill
Thanks for the input Gary, a helpful answer, not for the first time. I'll
probably be in Birmingham next week so I'll look some over with your points in mind. Thanks once more for your help. Kendall |
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Rolling Mill
Kendall Davies wrote:
Thanks for the input Gary, a helpful answer, not for the first time. I'll probably be in Birmingham next week so I'll look some over with your points in mind. Thanks once more for your help. Kendall There are mills with interchngeable rollers. A hassle but it could be an option. Carl -- to reply, change ( .not) to ( .net) |
#5
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Rolling Mill
Kendall Davies wrote:
I'm thinking of buying a rolling mill. I want to use the mill to produce texture and pattern on sheet and strip silver (and other metals). I'd also want to use it to taper wire or at least begin/speed up the process of hand forging. I've read around the subject and looked at websites and catalogues but have not had the luxury of actually getting my hands on one to get the feel of the equipment in use. I think this could be a really useful piece of equipment for me and I'm willing to spend something between £500 and £1000 if I have to. One of my dilemmas is how useful am I going to find a model with lots of wire grooves? and will I need to build up more bits of equipment like draw plates to get best use out of the mill. So, in brief do I get a basic but solid, rugged rolling mill that will handle the tasks of texturing and tapering well but not too much else, or do I spend more and buy a machine with lots of grooves etc, etc. All contributions to my decision making will be gratefully received, and just in case it makes a difference to any responses, I'm in the UK. Regards - Kendall What you want to do needs 2 different types of mill. to produce textured or patterned wire or strip needs a very strong mill with interchangeable rolls with patterns thereon. these are available from the tool suppliers in the Brmingham jewellery quarter. there meant for serious production runs and youll need to sit down to get the price. Quite unsuitable for a one man band operation on account of roll cost. Ive one of these and the basic mill cost 200 pounds 30 yrs ago in a sale without the patterened rolls. I never used it on account of cost. I went the other route, by making hand punches out of cold chisels with lots of different designs on them, and hammering these into the metal. Its fast, you can make an infinite variation of the design and get a proper price for your time. Made hundreds of these. Very popular. the other mill is,as has been described a 2 roll mill part flat part with grooves with an overhang opposite to the gear drive end.. this overhang takes wheels that will give you round and half round wire. Now when you go to B'ham, youll see these mills made in italy and also the UK. The Durston range are made in the Aylesbury area, I went to see Mr. Durston and bought extra rolls from him. the maker. Nice guy, tho he may have retired by now. Ive used it extensively, and motorised it for long production runs. It depends where your workshop is but DO keep a tin of WD 40 handy and always spray the rolls after youve used them. If they get rust on them it will mark the metal you roll. Difficult to remove but they can be reground of course. Now to go along with a mill you need a proper annealingtorch as after several runs or reductions your metal will harden up . you need a reducing large soft flame If you want details of this do let us know and ill outline what I have done. also youll need a long quenching tank and pickling tank, think what you need to handle strip 1in wide and 3ft long, or wire 1/4in thick and 3ft long. you cant use a simple brazing bench torch for this. working with metal on this scale is a differnt ball game to fiddling around with small jewelly bits of wire and a piercing saw. |
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Rolling Mill
On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 09:31:58 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Ted Frater
wrote: Kendall Davies wrote: I'm thinking of buying a rolling mill. I want to use the mill to produce texture and pattern on sheet and strip silver (and other metals). I'dalso want to use it to taper wire or at least begin/speed up the process of hand forging. I've read around the subject and looked at websites and catalogues but have not had the luxury of actually getting my hands on one to get the feel of the equipment in use. I think this could be a really useful piece of equipment for me and I'm willing to spend something between £500 and £1000 if I have to. One of my dilemmas is how useful am I going to find a model with lotsof wire grooves? and will I need to build up more bits of equipment likedraw plates to get best use out of the mill. So, in brief do I get a basic but solid, rugged rolling mill that will handle the tasks of texturing and tapering well but not too much else, or do I spend more and buy a machine with lots of grooves etc, etc. All contributions to my decision making will be gratefully received, and just in case it makes a difference to any responses, I'm in the UK. Regards - Kendall What you want to do needs 2 different types of mill. to produce textured or patterned wire or strip needs a very strong mill with interchangeable rolls with patterns thereon. these are available from the tool suppliers in the Brmingham jewellery quarter. there meant for serious production runs and youll need to sit down to get the price. Quite unsuitable for a one man band operation on account of roll cost. Ive one of these and the basic mill cost 200 pounds 30 yrs ago in a sale without the patterened rolls. I never used it on account of cost. I went the other route, by making hand punches out of cold chisels with lots of different designs on them, and hammering these into the metal. Its fast, you can make an infinite variation of the design and get a proper price for your time. Made hundreds of these. Very popular. the other mill is,as has been described a 2 roll mill part flat part with grooves with an overhang opposite to the gear drive end.. this overhang takes wheels that will give you round and half round wire. Now when you go to B'ham, youll see these mills made in italy and also the UK. The Durston range are made in the Aylesbury area, I went to see Mr. Durston and bought extra rolls from him. the maker. Nice guy, tho he may have retired by now. Ive used it extensively, and motorised it for long production runs. It depends where your workshop is but DO keep a tin of WD 40 handy and always spray the rolls after youve used them. If they get rust on them it will mark the metal you roll. Difficult to remove but they can be reground of course. Now to go along with a mill you need a proper annealingtorch as after several runs or reductions your metal will harden up . you need a reducing large soft flame If you want details of this do let us know and ill outline what I have done. also youll need a long quenching tank and pickling tank, think what you need to handle strip 1in wide and 3ft long, or wire 1/4in thick and 3ft long. you cant use a simple brazing bench torch for this. working with metal on this scale is a differnt ball game to fiddling around with small jewelly bits of wire and a piercing saw. A couple comments. While Ted is correct in his discussion, I suspect he's mis-interpreted what you meant by putting patterns on strip metal with a mill, overlooking the relatively recent (last few decades, perhaps) popularity of the method known as roll printing, where plain flat rolls are used, but the metal is rolled along with some textured thing, ranging from paper to wire screening to who knows what all else, to produce a texture on the silver. You don't need one of the costly pattern rolls to do that, just a flat mill. Probably, since good roll printing can sometimes require one to take a fairly good "bite" witha single pass through the roll, you may wish to avoid those less costly mills on the market that use a frame constructed of machined parts bolted together, rather than the stronger type with a single casting machined into the frame. The major brands like Durston or Cavallin are the latter type, while some of the cheapest mills from India or Spain, are made with the bolt together type.So is the somewhat better made Pepe brand mills, made in eastern europe. The various bolted together type mill frames can be useful mills, but just are not quite as strong. On the other hand, some of them are half the cost of the more traditional better ones. And these cheap types are the ones sometimes supplied with several interchangeable rollers, often including a couple with a sort of knurled pattern that, while limited, can still be useful at time (or if you don't like those patterns, it's an extra roll anyway, and you can experiment with altering the pattern to do something you like. Of the better quality mill types, you can get these as all flat, all wire grooves, or some combination of half flat and half grooved. I'd guess that to begin with, unless you'll need to be rolling wider pieces of sheet metal,the Durston or Cavalin combination mill types would well serve your needs. You don't need an infinate assortment of wire groove sizes, since each groovecan produce a slight range of sizes if the rolls are opened a bit versus tightly closed, but with the combo mills, usually the maximum size you can start with is limited, so you may need an ingot mold with a smaller groove to produce starting stock, or start with purchase manufactured heavy wire rather than making your own. For drawplates, as a starter, I'd suggest one of the carbide die types you can get from a number of sources, including Ebay. Look for the one that goes from about 2.8 millimeters maximum diameter, down to about .28 millimeters. You'll likely not need much wire finer than this, and larger than this plate's maximum gets pretty hard to draw without a draw bench, even in soft metallike silver. I like the superior finish a carbide plate gives the wire, and it is lower friction too, so a bit easier to pull. And these plates are available now in versions made in Taiwan and mainland china for very reasonable prices.Last one's I bougt were something like 40 dollars on Ebay. A good Italian made all steel plate will cost more than that. More durable, but doesn't produce that same high polished finish on the wire. I'd suggest staying away from the really cheap (ten dollar range) steel plates made in India. Hole sizes and finish are just so crude that these plates, while they can work in a pinch, are just not all as useful as one would wish, at least not without a lot of work finishing the plate up further, and with the reasonable price of the carbide plates one can find, why bother with them. If you can afford more, then high quality carbide plates, with replaceable dies and more durable construction, can be had, but they're several times the price. probably overkill for you at this point. Also, if indeed you did want to use a pattern roll to produce specific patterns of wire, like for bangle bracelets or ring bands, while the high quality riolls that fit the traditional mills are indeed costly as ted says, there is also an Indian made copy available for those small cheap mills. The Karat brand,if I'm not mistaken. For that mill, you can get several variations of a patterned wire roller for something like two hundred dollars per roller. If interested, reply with your interest and I'll see if I can find the link to the web page I saw them on. Peter Rowe |
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I have one very heavy duty roller by GFC and can provide a photo. shipping will take a bit time I would guess. |
#9
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Rolling Mills is the metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through a pair of rolls.
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#10
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Hello All,
I have seen some wonderful photos and a few videos of hand rolling steel mills in Sheffield and the Black Country. I would like to ask some questions from those who worked in the mills or have knowledge of the specifics of rolling hot steel. I am a blacksmith in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, USA and would like to learn about the sizes and pass reductions for a mill like the 14" cross country mill at Spencer Clark Metal Industries 003 Greasbrough Street, Rotherham In specific: What is the size of the flat on the corners of the square? How much reduction can be taken from one pass to another? Are there charts or equations or some such I can study? How large of a section can be run through what size roll? Any help would be appreciated. Yours, Ric Furrer |
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