[TheForge] Rolling Mill.

[Bob Smolen]

I have a roller mill partially complete. I am stuck on how the cam/foot
lever are made. I dont read blueprints well and found the Mcdonald pamphlet
difficult to follow (for me). Can someone send a pix or simple drawing of
their set up. I sent a note to Doveknives, but I dont think I got thru.
I would really appreciate the help.
Thanks,
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: <Doveknives@aol.com>
To: <theforge@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 3:26 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Rolling Mill.


> I saw the note asking about the rolling mills mentioned earlier.  I have
made four and love them.  A few things that I did change are 1. made it
taller, was 32 inches to top roll, made mine 52 inches to top roll since I
stand 6'3" tall and don't like to bend over while working.
> 2. I REALLY like this modification. Made bottom roll frame open where the
axil goes through.  This allows to level exactly the bottom roll to the top
for perfectly flat and straight billets.  This also allows me to raise one
side higher than the other to allow me to roll bevels into the swords that I
have made.  I did have to make front and back guide rolls placed vitically
to keep the steel from rolling out from under the rolls while rolling
bevels.  Using the rolling mill in this fashion REALLY saves time hammering
bevels, but, be ready to do alot of straightening of the bow out of your
blades.
>   3.  I used gear reduction motors that I bought at a local surplus store
instaed of the step shafts that Hugh designed into the original plans.  If
you keep the roll RPM to twenty, you can get by with a 1/2 HP motor.  I have
put a 110 to 1 ratio drive onto one mill and even with the rolls only
turning at 10 RPM I still cannot stop or stall the motor and it is only 1/10
HP used to raise industrial garage doors.  DO NOT give into the urge to put
latger dia. rolls on because this requires much larger HP to run the mill
due to increase in serface torque.
>   4. I would advise not to go with the hydrolic jack design that is used
in the "Blue Crusher".  I was going to do that but thought I might try the
original plans for that part of the project.  I'm GLAD that I did!  The hand
operated cam can quickly and accurately adjusted to compensate for not
enough or too much preasure on the rolls.
>   Finally, as I have written before, I decided to see how hard it is for a
novice with no forging experiance to learn how to use this machine.  I took
three of these mills down to the college where I've taught for the last 6
years classes on blade and Damascus smithing. I found that it took one after
noon for the students to get the hand of it, I had an air hammer and a
forging press on hand too and the students used the press to set the welds
and the mills to roll the billets out between welds, the poor power hammer
got ignored.  I have been using the rolling mills I have now tfor 4 years
and seldom use the power hammer for anything outside of ornimental Iron
work.  The rolling mill will never replace the power hammer, but, it is one
of the finest tools I have when it comes to making damascus.  If a person is
in an residential area I do believe that you could get by with a forging
press and a rolling mill and the nieghbors would not complain of the noise.
I've started making quick change form rolls to use on my machines to allow a
wide varity of textures and forms to be made, think of rolling a double
edged bevel with a fulle or multiple fullers in the center in just a few
passes.  : )
>   Sorry for the long windedness of my note:)
>   If you have questions about the mills please feel free to contact me at
doveknives@aol.com
>
> Steve Rollert
> doveknives.com
> keenedgeknives.com
>
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