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quick n dirty diy bead roller for tubing

M

mjautek

Active Member
just thought I'd show off this bead roller I made in 2022 out of stuff I had in my junk bins. I used it to roll beads on aluminum tubing for an intercooler I was putting in my LJ78 landcruiser.

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front view

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isometric ish


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top view

the body is made of aluminum and the wheels are made of steel. Both wheels have ball bearings - the big wheel has one pressed in, and the small wheel shaft has one on each end of the aluminum block. i dunno if bearings are necessary, I just had a bunch and figured why not.

I think the radii in the wheels were cut using form tools I ground out of HSS. at first I cut the groove in the big wheel to be the same size as the small one but it needs to be wider to accomodate the wall thickness of whatever pipe you're rolling.

the sliding elements are shoulder bolts, and the tensioning element is just a 1/4-20 bolt. I have a few boxes of shoulder bolts so I thought they'd be good as linear elements - in this application my design is not very stiff and you can see the two blocks getting bent out of parallel as you crank down on the 1/4-20 bolt. In practice it's good enough for my use, just a bit cheesy (I would not use this on stainless, but for thin alu it's OK). The crank handle also uses a shoulder bolt and the green bit is a cut down screwdriver handle (which I think is a nice touch).

the biggest flaw with this design is that it has to be held in a vise - but since it's pretty short you end up having to put it in a vise at like 45° to have access to both the crank and rollers. so if I were to do this again maybe I'd add a block sticking out the bottom for the vise to grab onto. and maybe I'd also put the rollers closer to the blocks to give the unit less overhang (for stiffness) - beads are rolled at the very end of the tube anyways so I dunno why I had them stuck out like that.

overall, it's served me and some friends pretty well.

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I can't find any pictures of the tool in use but here's a picture of the intercooler for context. the beads don't need to be very big to be effective - maybe 1-2mm or so - and besides if the bead is too big the aluminum tube will start cracking.

cheers, and hope this is useful to someone.
 
Cool build. A friend of mine built the vise grip kind of idea, they worked but not like this type. The only thing you would do different is say make the body the length of your vice jaws?
 
djberta said:
Cool build. A friend of mine built the vise grip kind of idea, they worked but not like this type. The only thing you would do different is say make the body the length of your vice jaws?
Click to expand...
oh wow I never thought of making one out of vise grips, that's way less work lol

I wouldn't make the body longer (seems like a waste of material?), I'd bolt a block on the bottom so I don't have to hold it in a vise like this. but clearly I haven't done this because I'm lazy

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I see what you mean. You could attach a piece under it to raise it above the vise. Like a piece of angle or cold rolled Looks like it works great.
 
That is really slick. I have (my own) drawings for a mini tubing 'bender' & its similarly designed to mount in a bench vise the same way. Just has a rectangular bar extension incorporated into the base so you can hold it securely, or I suppose orient the device in one of four 90-deg placements if that's more convenient.
 
mjautek said:
oh wow I never thought of making one out of vise grips, that's way less work lol

I wouldn't make the body longer (seems like a waste of material?), I'd bolt a block on the bottom so I don't have to hold it in a vise like this. but clearly I haven't done this because I'm lazy

View attachment 58552
Click to expand...
Um...could you reverse the wheels so the tube is at the top ?
 
Love it. From the residual Dykem, to the make/model/serial # stamped, and use of shoulder bolts for slides. A true Toolmaker.

I've wanted to build a bead roller (for sheet metal) for many years, but it just never worked it's way of the priority list, so I ended up just buying a small one recently from Princess Auto when it was on sale.

As for mounting, I've been starting to adopt the square tubing receiver hitch method. Started years ago with my 2" vice stand, then I started adding a couple more tools that needed a solid mount, and now have a few more that I need to adapt to it also. If I were to do it again, I'd go with 1.5" tubing instead of the 2" because I think it's overkill for bench tools. But it's handy, and very easy to make. My new welding table design I'm working on has a few 2" pockets in the table top, and sides, so I can interchange tools in a few different spots, then store them underneath out of the way when I don't need them.
 
I have a home made one, not as versatile, as it is specific to the pipe size. It was a big bolt that was the right size above the threads. Drilled 4 holes in a cris-cross for ball bearings. I drilled a hole in the center and put a bolt with angle grinder ground taper in the shank. I had to use more than one ball bearing in the holes so that the ball would touch the tapered bolt shank in the center of the critter. You drop it into the tube and start tightening the nut on the tapered bolt and then turn it, tighten, turn and a rib appears on the outside of the tube.
This was an emergency creation for a return oil line on a hydraulic tank. Made a huge mess when it slipped off, so this fixed it.
 
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