On Sep 12, 12:49 pm, Grant Erwin wrote:
I met the seller of the 30" "18 gauge" slip roll today. I bought the machine
because it was a good price and I'm positive I can sell it for that, but I
don't quite understand it yet.

It isn't a slip roll! Meaning, none of the rolls come loose so you can slip
a rolled tube off. I'm sure with sheet metal thin enough, you can roll it
to a closed loop and then open the loop enough to get it off the roll, but
boy that seems klunky to me.

Anyone seen one like this? Am I off base here?

Grant

Most of the slip rolls/power rolls that I've seen aren't designed for
anything that you couldn't slip off the rolls. Most are rolled and
then seamed with a Pittsburgh lock, spot welded, etc. After all, it
is designed for 18 gauge, which isn't that thick. I'd guess that
you'd have a hard time keeping most thin sheet metal together such
that it doesn't open up. For most of the stuff I've seen, they don't
try to run the power roll continuously. It is run back and forth from
one endof the sheet to the other.
For what you're thinking, I think they use a different tool. A
machinist friend of mine built some custom wheels for an electric
vehicle, and he had to build a tool to do it. The wheels are 6 feet
in diameter, 1/4" steel plate, 6" wide. It works out to about a 19'
length of stock prior to rolling. Basically, he built a roller driven
by a corded "D" style drill (the really big kind that plumbers use to
cut 4" holes through joists and the like.) It had just one side
plate, consisting of a driven roller (chucked in the drill) and a pair
of rollers with bearings and a screw assembly to adjust the
thickness. The steel was fed in one end (usually with a helper) and
rolled back and forth until it came together. Even with 1/4" steel,
the 6' diameter wheel could still be opened 2-3 inches when
completed. The assembly was taken out of the machine and placed on
the floor, with a circle drawn to show the size. The ends were then
welded together, and the 1" diameter steel spokes fitted.