Pauliewog wrote:There is no doubt in my mind Paul....... You are the Man to ask ! So, do you have any recommendations on a suitable model that is reasonably priced ?
Paulie
Paulie,
The metal forming machines on sites like Eastwood are really pushing it for 16 ga. They are really meant for lighter gauge metal.
As I said, 16 ga steps up into the world of "heavy-duty" machines. 18 ga and lighter ga machines are classed as light duty machines.
Places like Eastwood don't like to use the industry term of "light duty" in their sales info. However,being light duty machines, those flat plate metal stiffened arm type bead rollers in the links will deflect if you tried to roll the size beads the stove barrels need. You might get it done in multiple passes by increasing the tension with each pass, if the metal doesn't work harden to much on the first passes. ????? Or you'd have to use lighter gage steel for the barrel, but then what are you really saving ?
I bought a $500.00 cast iron frame box break/roller combo machine from Harbor freight that was advertises as heavy duty. But I think the "heavy" part has more to do with it's weight than it's strength.
It's so heavy I have to take it apart to move it. But, It will barely do a 36 inch long fold in 16 ga mild steel. However no problem rolling 36 inches of that thickness.
The bead roller I have is on loan from a friend,... if I made the roller dies to fit the old fenders we work on, which I did. It's a cast iron bench-mount beast, of unknown age, that I can barely lift up onto the bench.
It handles 16 ga mild steel like it was sheet butter. It's a long reach machine and there's no detectable deflection of the cast arms when rolling deep, wide beads in a single pass. Yet the arms are narrow enough that you could reach full length into about a 10 inch cylinder - maybe even smaller. I imagine it would be very expensive to replace today.
Here's a short-reach heavy duty bead rolling machine from Grizzly.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/Heavy-Duty-Bead-Roller/G0816
Notice the "16" in the model number. That's the capacity even though they say it can do 12 ga aluminum, or 14 ga mild steel. Then look at the price.
A long reach machine would be much more expensive. Ok, it's power driven, but my guess is that a manually powered hand-crank machine would be about half that. You can buy a lot of finished, ready to install barrels for what the two machines that you need would cost,.... even for good quality used machines.
Paul