Tubing roller build

[BruckerBrothers]

Yet another shop equipment build. This time, our take on the Harbor Freight/Swag Off Road style tubing roller. We have used the HF roller with some of the upgrades that Swag offers for a number of years already. But during our big shop move a couple years back, the roller setup was damaged. This led to inconsistent rolls and lots of frustration trying to resolve the issues. So here we are finally fixing the issues once and for all while adding our unique spin.

Our original setup:



Link to HF roller: https://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html

Link to Swag's roller upgrades: https://www.swagoffroad.com/SWAG-Tubing ... _c_54.html

We wanted to keep the new platform similar to the old so that dies could be purchased instead of having to make custom dies. Although we have made a couple custom die sets for it already and will make a few others as well, but more on that later. Another reason to keep it similar was the fact that we still had some unused parts on the shelf from Swag. Specifically, the electric drive kit including the electric threader.

Got started designing in SW:



Then made all the cutting files needed and cut some pieces out with the plasma table as well as the mill and lathe. Instead of going in depth with each piece being produced, we will just show the finished pieces. If you want more info on how some of the individual pieces were created, here are a couple short videos of 2 of the processes:

[video=youtube_share;LQ5VD2WfpqE]https://youtu.be/LQ5VD2WfpqE[/video]

[BruckerBrothers]

[video=youtube_share;a_7RNfiR06g]https://youtu.be/a_7RNfiR06g[/video]

[BruckerBrothers]

First up were the main body plates cut out on the plasma. Here there are after being cleaned up:



Machined a few internally threaded standoffs for the base:



Machined the pieces needed for the main drive carriage/trolley then assembled them:

[BruckerBrothers]

Machined the top plate:



Modified the top spring retainer plate that came with the Swag kit to include a countersunk mounting hole for the top of the bottle jack:



Return springs:



Bottle mounting plate for the jack, springs, and the indicator guage:



Modified a 4 ton bottle jack by drilling and tapping the top and bottom and adding a release knob made by Swag:

[BruckerBrothers]

Spring retainers for the main shaft that came in the Swag kit:





Welded together and to the main shaft:





Machined a delrin washer for the main shaft:



Welded together the drive shaft and drive hub from Swag:



Assembled the roller pins for the non driven dies:



Cut out an indicator for the gauge/scale setup:



And cut out the gauge/scale:

[BruckerBrothers]

With all the pieces cut, we can assemble:



Final product (for now):







Would like to go to a hard stop eventually for easily repeatable rolls, but for now this simple scale should work well. Detail of the scale/gauge setup:





And after the first test piece of 1.75" x .120" wall DOM round tubing:

[BruckerBrothers]

We happened to find a few of the "blank" die sets for the roller from HF back during one of their inventory closeouts, so we bought what we could.



So those plus some lathe time and we have a few different custom dies along with the standard dies that come. So far we are able to roll 1", 1.5", 1.75", and 2" round tubing. Flat stock up to 1/2" thick and 3" wide, both the easy and hard ways. And a single 1/2" square die, but more will be purchased or made as needed.