[Jewelry making - Article 00008] - Re: [Orchid] Hammer Textured Rolling Mill?

[Dar Shelton]

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    Continuing even though the customer is happy with the way things are
    now, I thought about the way I have my mill set up, which is with the
    original handle removed, and 1.5" gears on the mill and the 1/4 hp
    gearmotor,and a motorcycle chain running things. It became obvious
    that it was set up for speed rather than power, so I considered my
    options there at 3:00 am (normal work time for me, a bit inconvenient
    for running to the stores!) and decided first to try the mill with
    it's original handle. I even used a cheater bar but couldn't roll
    fresh tool steel deep enough off of my hardened master plate. Next
    idea was to put a bigger gear on the mill itself --which I had, but
    not with the right sized bore, so I stuck a rotary file in the drill
    press and made it.050" larger in there, since I didn't think my
    little rubber-band-driven watchmaker's lather was up to the job ! --
    to get the torque ratio more in my favor, by a factor of about 2 .
    This was very noticeably more beefy, and with a better attachment
    than the last gear, the thing runs smooth and powerful, and ALMOST
    rolls a fresh tool steel plate off of the master. 

    Almost, but not quite deep enough, so my next move is to either put
    a bigger gearmotor on it or a bigger gear. Gears are a boatload
    cheaper at the surplus joint where I got these gears and motor, so
    that's the plan. Running steel on steel today, I could hear the motor
    straining under the load, slowing, slowing as the 6" by 1.5" plates
    squeezed through, and just barely making it through without stopping.
    No hammering the mill's adjustment handle to open it up, but not
    quite the whole enchilada on the resulting texture either. I am
    somewhat uncertain about indiscriminately adding torque to my mill
    but even with a gear twice as big as the one on now (which is twice
    as big as the 1.5" one from earlier ) it still comes in substantially
    less that the "handle-driven diameter". That's thinking in terms of
    the length of the handle doubled, which can be envisioned as the size
    of the imaginary gear driving the mill in manual mode. What I don't
    know is how much torque this mill is built to withstand, but I'm
    thinking that since the motor was getting taxed, even as the metal
    went through very smoothly, I have mill capacity headroom. Which
    tells me I could either go for a little bit bigger motor, or a bigger
    gear, as stated. It's fairly close to what I need now, so I figure I
    don't need any drastic jump in power, so I'm thinking (thinking this
    through logically right now) I don't need to worry about my mill
    being damaged. At worst, some internal gearbox teeth will be
    sacrificed in the name of research. (At least I hope that's all that
    might happen... I haven't opened it up to see inside about what else
    could be hurt). So, with a $400 Pepe (4:1 gearbox ratio) , a $75 used
    gearmotor , some spare parts and plenty of R&D, I get a setup that
    would cost thousands otherwise. And judging from the lack of similar,
    tool-steel-based experiments posted concurrent to mine, I may just
    be adding a new bite of knowledge to the trade. Of course this has
    all been done on a large, industrial scale before, but it's new to
    me. Also, when this all works itself out I plan to offer
    hardened-steel, hammered plates for sale in some form or other. Seems
    the obvious thing to do, since I saw and sand and bang and heat treat
    tool steel plates (pancake blanking dies) all the time anyway. 

Stay tuned,
Dar Shelton
sheltech.net
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