[TheForge] Rolling Mill.

[Steve Smith]

I haven't made one, so I can't help you directly, but my experience with 
blueprints is similar. What I've found to help is going over them at 
least five times in detail. After that I start to follow the print!

Steve Smith

Bob Smolen wrote:
> 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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