Is there any jewelery forums you can go on that would advise you better!

Bob

Depends on the accuracy required but rings can be formed by pressing onto something like a wide shallow VEE block and repeatedly moving the job until a circular or any other shape is completed. A fly press is ideal but a vice may do. Colin

Plenty of people have made traction engine wheels using bending rolls, even bending the angle for them as well as plate for the outer.

As long as you have some precaution against sideways distortion (two guide plates?) rolls should do the job well.

Neil

You could find a local metal shop that have rollers and they could do them for you, most sheet metal rollers have grooves for wire / rod forming . Well at least mine do

Paul

Depends how accurate you need them. I make them that sort of size by bending round a mandral in a big vice. Needs a trial to find the mandral diameter, smaller than the inside of the ring. Camp one end of material to the manderal and bend, go more than a circle and cut off to size. If you don't stop it is quite easy to bend up to 1/2" sq. and quite accurate with a bit of practice.

I don't know what thickness the rolls will bend. They were designed to be used with 3" by 3/16" and 5-1/4" by 3/16". Time will tell if my calculations are correct. The design is essentially upside down, ie, the material bends downwards, rather than upwards. That makes the adjustment of the third roller much simpler. The rolls are designed to be bolted to the table of my horizontal mill, the wheel rims eventually forming around the rolls and table.

Jason: I'll stick the rolls in the back of the car and bring them down on Saturday.

Regards,

Andrew

Edit note: The original design had deep 1/4" grooves incorporated so that I could also form the T-piece rings. However, I ended up buying these as laser cut quarter circles to weld together, so the grooves were not needed.

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 24/08/2012 14:35:37

CB this is what you need to knock up Proven to work on Fowlers

J

CB: Yes, I do have drawings. The whole thing was designed in Alibre, so I have 3D models of all parts, plus a 3D assembly. I also have 2D drawings of all parts, although they are only dimensioned sufficiently to allow me to make the parts. The design was based around material, and gear cutter, that I already had. The gears are 13 tooth, 5DP, 20ºPA. The geared rolls are 2.475" in diameter and the free roller is 2.5".

If you want drawings PM me an email address.

Regards,

Andrew

Charadam ,

On the original topic :

Bending these rings is very easy to do hot .

Get your bar up to very bright red/orange , anchor one end in a slot in your former (axis vertical) , hold the other end with hollow bit tongs and just walk around with it . Make 1.25 turns and trim later . Former needs to be about 3% undersize .

Can certainly be done in one heat but no problem re-heating as nescessary . Better sometimes to get a helper to play a torch flame on bar to maintain the temperature while you do the bending .

Any irregularities can be sorted by tapping down affected bits after another heat though you should not get any problems if bar is kept hot enough . 'Hot enough' means being in the plastic state – roughly very bright red/orange as mentioned above – but it would pay to get a feel for the difference between just red hot and this plastic state by playing with scrap metal .

Regards ,

Michael Williams .

Heat end of 8mm to red and bend 50mm at 90 degrees,

weld bent setion to pipe of appox diameter.

Heat rod to cherry and pull around tube. once started if Black ms used may not need the heat on the bigger ring

keep heating and pulling round untill like a coil spring.

When enough turns cut down one side with angle grinde and twist rings true, adjust length and weld up

Steve

I have heard of another method of making TE wheels. Make up to size, strips of steel for rims, mill shallow slot, roll up. Bend up on the width, narrow strip of steel which will fit in the slot in the inside of the rim, weld up. Another thing, use AC welding current and you get a bulbous convex fillet but weld with DC current and you get a concave fillet, which looks better.