Harbor Freight Ring Roller and Bandsaw

[Pat]

Hi,

The other day we went to Harbor Freight and picked up one of my Christmas presents (the el-cheapo bandsaw) for $149.99. I also picked up the planetery ring roller for $39.99 after showing the store manager the price the roller listed for in their catalog. The store price is $49.99. Any others wishing to snap up one of these rollers at the store should go to Harbor Freights web site,
click on "Order From Printed Catalog", On the form that pops up put in 1 for quantity, then 36790 in the next box, 3 in the next, and then VGA in the last box. Hit enter, then print the form that appears and take it to the store with you to get $10.00 off.

Now, about the ring roller. When I opened it up, there was this fung-gooey coating all over everything. Kind of like a tacky wax substance. I figured it was some sort of anti-rust sprayed on for the long boat ride. I sprayed some Brake-Kleen on it which removed most of that stuff.

After getting the roller mounted I attempted to make a 3" circle out of 3/4" X 1/8" strip. Can anyone tell me how I can make the circles completely round instead of ending up with approx 1" flat spots on the ends, or is this something that is common with this tool and I will have to make the ends conform with the rest of the circle by some other bending method.

While at the checkout, a guy overheard that we were buying the bandsaw and told us that for the money you can't beat what the saw is capable of doing, but said to toss the crappy legs, and not even install the saw blade that comes with it. He said the blades are so rotten that he threw his in his regular garbage to make sure the metal didn't get recycled because it wouldn't even make good rebar. As soon as we got home I ordered 2 Morse Bi-Metal blades from Enco that have the 10-14" teeth.

Would really appreciate any help on making completely round circles...................thanks.

[WarrenInDe]

I have not made any circles yet so I have not done this but this is what I read in the Shop Outfitters "Ornamental Iron Idea and Design" book I got. Nice book worth the $20.00.

Roll the ring until the ends touch, like you said there will be a flat spot on each end.

Then cut off the flat spots the continue to roll the ring until the ends meet again.

It sounds link it should work.

I used mine to make pickets for a small fence I made. I marked the center of my piece and 3" each side of center. I then rolled out to each mark from center tightening it a little at a time untill the ends were parallel, this made a long legged "U" shape. I turned them upside down with the open end down and welded them to my horizontal pieces.

The weathers been kind of miserable around here lately, I'll post some pics if it ever clears up.

Hope this helps.
Warren

[softtail86]

Hi Pat,

I have the ring roller from Toolsplus, which is the same as HF.

I have been able to make small (2.5 inch) diameter circles from 3/16 rod. I have found that the center depression of the wheel is useless for making circles out of round wire, but does come in handy for what I call making "pig-tails" out of the wire.

I adjust the wheels to start making a bend in the wire (1/4 or 3/16 diam solid wire) in the center of the wheel (near the wire groove of the wheel), adjust the movable wheel to get a tight circle to be formed. You will see that if you get it tight enough it will come around the wheel and can be fed into the wire groove giving you "pig-tails" ! I then cut off the flats and by bending and aligning the ring get a ring round enough to weld closed!

I know it is a lot of work, but for $39 bucks, what do we expect!!!


Anyway, good luck!!

Seth

[Bender]

Get a short piece of 2.5"-3" pipe and weld to something solid sticking out horizontal and put your 3" piece on the pipe where the flat spots are and hammer until rounded. Works best if you hammer before welding. Hope this helps.

Also, you can hammer before rolling. just layout your radius on your table and bend to that.

Edit:
I've discovered that this does'nt work on small rings made out of 1/4" roundbar. All you get is rattled fingers.

[Paychk]

I'm not sure how similar the ring roller is to the slip roll, but where I work they do something called back rolling to prevent the flat spot. Basically the piece is feed into the roller from the exit side of the machine 2-3 inches. This starts the roll without the flat spot. Then the piece is turned around and feed into the roller from the front, this eliminates the flat spot.

[Bender]

That's right Paychk. I run slip rolls at work and thats the way I do it. The thing about the HF ring roller is that the rollers are too far apart no matter how high you crank the knob. I just bought a set this past Saturday and so far I'm not real happy with them. Maybe with time and a little more experimenting it will get better but I don't know.

[Fla Jim]

Pat;
As soon as you have the opertunity make a new stand for you saw. Really makes a big improvement in performance.

[Pat]

Jim,

I am in the process of doing that now. There was a post by someone about using something that was pre-made for another use and required modifications before mounting the bandsaw on it. That got me thinking that I have an old cart that was used in an automotive service center to hold 2 of the small barrels (15-20gallon?) of lube. I have it cut down, and today I might make and attach the mounting brackets. I have been toying with the idea of using some rubber sway bar bushings on the mounting brackets for controlling vibration, but don't know if this is a good idea or not.........any opinion on this...........thanks,

Pat

[Fla Jim]

I made my stand out of some 1 1/2" x 1/16" square tubing I had left over from a tripod stand project, and a couple pieces of 2" x 3" tube. I mounted the saw to the stand with angle bolted through the original mounting holes on the saw base. Its very ridgid, and I have no vibration.

[ChadRat]

I usually just use more material than necessary and cut out the flat spots. I work with hot rolled steel not gold. At $1.20 a 20 foot stick of 1/4" round I can afford to waste a few images.

Here is a pic of the stand on my import bandsaw. I just made a retangle box out of angle iron and added some casters.

I took my ring roller apart and put some good wheel bearing gease in it.