[Jewelry making - Article 00498] - [Orchid] Rolling mills square wire grooves

[Alberic]

========[ Invite a Friend - http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm  ]========

Greetings all.

    Speaking of cheapo rolling mills, I have a comment and a question. 

    Does anybody know why the square wire rolls in every mill I've ever
    seen (dozens) have flat bottoms to the square wire grooves? (Thus
    giving 'square' wire with the corners beveled off.) This holds on
    cheapo Indian mills, Durstons, or those green German ones. Clearly
    there must be a reason, but what is it? Normally I don't care, but
    I'm working on some square wire based Mokume things, and it'd be a
    *whole* lot easier to get to my final form if I could get sharp edges
    on the wire. (I tried rolling it through the flat rolls to give me
    sharp edges, and that works, but it tends to go trapezoid, and then I
    end up beveling a corner as I knock it back to square.) (Remember:
    This is mokume. Twisted mokume. It *really* doesn't want to do
    anything evenly, especially rolling.) 

    Which leads me to a comment about the Indian mills. I have several
    real rolling mills, including one that I converted from a dead
    powered mill, and machined up new rollers for. (Just for reference,
    the rolls on that were case hardened.050" deep, to RC 55-60. ) I
    ended up picking up one of the cheapo indian mills at a garage sale
    for...not much. The handle had snapped off, probably before the
    original owner got a chance to use it. So it really does *not*
    impress me for quality. But for cheap, for something that I don't
    feel guilty re-machining the rolls on, yes. (This one is a 'Moon',
    for whatever that's worth.) 

    Since it has square wire rolls, and I already have a real square wire
    mill, the thought floating through my head would be to re- machine
    the grooves in the square wire rolls so they had full 90 degree
    bottoms. 

    Has anybody ever used a mill with full square rolls? Anybody know why
    they're usually not? 

Regards,
Brian Meek
____________________________________________________________________
T h e   O r c h i d   L i s t
Open Electronic Forum for Jewelry Manufacturing Methods and Procedures
____________________________________________________________________
Orchid FAQ:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/faq.htm
Orchid Archives:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive
Orchid Galleries:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Invite a Friend:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm
____________________________________________________________________
Tips From The Jeweler's Bench - Article Archive
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tip_sear.htm
The Jeweler's Selected Bibliography List
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books
Buy Orchid Jewelry:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/shop
____________________________________________________________________
-Unsubscribe:
-Email: orchid-request AT ganoksin.com Body=unsubscribe subject=blank
____________________________________________________________________