Keeping sand (or swarf) out of intimate places really makes a
difference on sliding surfaces. titter

How true! :-)

What? You don't have a PortaPower? Shameful!
(Damn, but they're handy!)

Actually I do and I even have one of the short-travel rams that's really
strong. It bent it out well enough but it wouldn't stay and I was out of
gas for my torch and couldn't heat it up. This was the unit shown in the
pictures on my site and it has the wider side plates. The place where I buy
my metal didn't have any 3/8" that was 8" wide so I went with some 1/2".
It was less likely to bend than the 3/8" but more likely to stay where it
bent to. :-)

One last question: Why didn't you bore for bearings and use them in
all the rollers? I'd think that this would make the difference between
a smooth-working tubing roller and one which works you.

I don't really think it would make all that much difference. The real work
is the bending of the metal and you can tell that by how far you jack it for
each pass. :-)

Actually I'm sure there are quite a few things I could have done to make it
better but for this particular use it just wasn't worth it. They were both
looking for something quick and cheap to get the job done.

One thing I did do that probably helps a little though is to turn down the
ends of the rollers so that they look like they have a 1 1/2" washer on the
ends. That should be better than the entire diameter of the roller rubbing
on the plates.

I got a workout on a metal machine today. After carrying a truck-bed
full of compost onto the lady's new garden area, I got the 6hp
front-tined tilling beastie down off the truck by myself and let it
wrestle me around the clayey soil -slope- for an hour, then I wrestled
it back up onto the truck by myself, taking the -very- last ounce of
my energy. I'm renting a rear-tined beastie with its own trailer the
next time I get suckered into tilling.

I have a bad back so I avoid heavy lifting if possible. Plus my son loves
doing that sort of thing so we call him whenever the wife needs the garden
tilled.

Best Regards,
Keith Marshall


"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"