Quality Modifactions on a Cheap Bead Roller

**barts metalwork** · May 19, 2020, 03:27 PM

I bought a cheap (HBM) Bead Roller a month ago. After some testing it was time to make some modifications. The side movement is terrible and needs to be fixed. But if I start this project I might as well do some other modifications to make it more usable:

Adjustment hand crank
Wide throat
Drive hand wheel
Stand
Pointer
Depth stop
Sliding adjustment on bottom shaft
Working table
Dies storage

I want to use it first without a motor, but I will add one in the future.

The making of video is on my YouTube Channel Barts Metalwork:

**mr herb** · May 22, 2020, 09:59 AM

THE BEST video that I have seen,in regards to utility of design, and quality of workmanship. Worthy of some kind of award.

What is the make of your milling machine?

**barts metalwork** · May 22, 2020, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by mr herb

THE BEST video that I have seen,in regards to utility of design, and quality of workmanship. Worthy of some kind of award.
What is the make of your milling machine?

Thank you. The Milling Machine is a Schaublin 13

**wizard69** · Jun 1, 2020, 02:40 PM

Bart;

This has to be one of the best bead roller upgrades I've seen. Seriously you have done a massive overhaul and made many significant upgrades. Frankly it is almost as if you started from zero.

I'm sitting here trying to think about what else you could do beyond a motor drive. The one thing that I've always wondered about is placing a crank above the rollers, slightly to the right. This would require a right angle drive of some sort but the thought was that it would be handy for precision work or even make one man operation easier for odd shaped items. By the way not a big fan of motor drives here due to the finger pinching potential. About the only other thing I can think of is a scale for the fence, that is easy to do. Maybe something else will come up.

In any event a fantastic post about making something so so awesome.

**barts metalwork** · Jun 1, 2020, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by wizard69

Bart;

This has to be one of the best bead roller upgrades I've seen. Seriously you have done a massive overhaul and made many significant upgrades. Frankly it is almost as if you started from zero.

I'm sitting here trying to think about what else you could do beyond a motor drive. The one thing that I've always wondered about is placing a crank above the rollers, slightly to the right. This would require a right angle drive of some sort but the thought was that it would be handy for precision work or even make one man operation easier for odd shaped items. By the way not a big fan of motor drives here due to the finger pinching potential. About the only other thing I can think of is a scale for the fence, that is easy to do. Maybe something else will come up.

In any event a fantastic post about making something so so awesome.

Thanks! And a fence scale is nice idea. And the crank might also work for small work. But I think I will add a motor because holding the work with two hands also improves a lot on precision work.