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I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 7th 09, 10:42 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
FC...
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Posts: 14
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

Need to get a new Rolling Mill. I don't really want to spend any more
than about $700.00 as my use for it will be VERY basic (texturing
metal, flattening out small ingots). I know nothing about 'rolling
mills' so any suggestions or information would be very welcome.

Thanks,

/FC....
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  #2  
Old March 10th 09, 04:08 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Abrasha
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Posts: 298
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

FC... wrote:
Need to get a new Rolling Mill. I don't really want to spend any more
than about $700.00 as my use for it will be VERY basic (texturing
metal, flattening out small ingots). I know nothing about 'rolling
mills' so any suggestions or information would be very welcome.

Thanks,

/FC....


You're not going to get much for $700.00.

I found a beautiful electric Dinkel for you on eBay. Unfortunately it
is in Germany. http://tinyurl.com/ahv879

I found another one on the US eBay site at http://tinyurl.com/dhv24f
The seller wants $800.00 for it. He claims the rolls are in perfect
condition, but they don't look that way in the photo. Maybe they are
covered in wax. Hard to tell from the photos. Handle missing, which
you must have to operate. Contact the seller and bargain. Offer him
$400, but only if the rolls are indeed in good condition. Having them
reground is costly and a hassle.

I'd look for a used one from one of the used equipment dealers in
Providence, RI

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com
  #3  
Old March 10th 09, 06:13 PM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Heinrich Butschal[_3_]
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Posts: 21
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

Abrasha schrieb:
FC... wrote:

....
I found a beautiful electric Dinkel for you on eBay. Unfortunately it
is in Germany. http://tinyurl.com/ahv879



Don´t say it too loud, the Austrians would be exhausted if You count them to
germany. :-)



Mit freundlichem Gruß,
Heinrich Butschal
--
Schmuck Gutachter und Schmuckverkauf http://www.butschal.de
Schmuck nach Maß anfertigen http://www.meister-atelier.de
Firmengeschenke und Ehrennadeln http://www.goldschmiede-meister.com
Schmuckmanufaktur http://www.schmuckfabrik.de
Schmuck gut verkaufen und günstig kaufen http://www.schmuck-boerse.com
  #4  
Old March 11th 09, 03:25 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
FC...
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

Thanks for the info...

What about the PEPE mills, Are those any good ?

http://www.pepetools.com/viewcategory.php/categoryid/89

I found some of the above locally and wanted to get some feedback...

Cheers,

/FC...
  #5  
Old March 11th 09, 06:31 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
ted frater
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Posts: 133
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

FC... wrote:
Thanks for the info...

What about the PEPE mills, Are those any good ?

http://www.pepetools.com/viewcategory.php/categoryid/89

I found some of the above locally and wanted to get some feedback...

Cheers,

/FC...



How Local? within say 1hr's driving?
If so, take some metal samples with you, plus the purchase money and
go and try them out.
The spec looks ok for the sort of use you will giveit.
Let us know if you try one out.
  #6  
Old March 11th 09, 07:03 AM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Peter W. Rowe[_2_]
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Posts: 115
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

On Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:42:45 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "FC..."
wrote:

Need to get a new Rolling Mill. I don't really want to spend any more
than about $700.00 as my use for it will be VERY basic (texturing
metal, flattening out small ingots). I know nothing about 'rolling
mills' so any suggestions or information would be very welcome.

Thanks,

/FC....


The two main "full quality" brands commonly seen in the U.S. are the Italian
Cavallin mills, and the British Durston mills. The German Dinkel are also
beautiful mills, but seem to be sold by fewer firms here in the U.S. Of the
three, the Itailan mills are often a little less costly, but not by much.
Durston and Dinkels seem about equal in both cost and quality, which exceed,
slightly, the Italian mills. I'd give the Durston mills a slight edge due to a
strong reputation for great customer service.

However, none of these mills are cheap. A few of the smallest ones come close
to your price cap. Maybe. Most are more. But all are worth their price.

There are, however, cheaper mills available. Many of the tools companies sell
what is usually an Indian made copy of an older Spanish model mill. Fairly
small, lighter weight, less capable. But half the cost, or less, of the Italian
of British mills. There are several versions out there. Some come with a
strange assortment of interchangeable rolls, some of which are less useful than
they look, but the options can seem attractive, and may be, for some people.

There's even a chinese made copy of that Indian made copy, which you can buy for
even less (under 200 I think) from Harbor Freight company. it's even cheesier
than the indian made mills. With these cheap mills, quality is variable. Some
are slightly better than others, though it's hard to tell just by looking
whether you're getting a good one or not. The one's sold by either Contenti
company, or Otto Frei, seem decent. The Contenti mill also has available a
unique series of pattern wire rolls, which may or may not fit some of the mills
sold by others, but I'd not bet on it.

As to the Harbor freight mill, it would be fine if you only want a mill to last
a temporary period of time, or will be using it only a few times per year, for
really light weight work.

The other lower cost mills share a common thread. They're light weight
machines. Now the problem is that in your description, you say you'll be using
it for basic work. Frankly, most mill work is pretty basic. The real
differences in mill capacity and usability aren't in whether you think you're
doing advanced or basic work. It's in what sorts of loads you're putting on the
rolls. With the Higher quality mills, you simply won't be breaking anything
unless you really work hard at abusing the mill. They're built right. The
lower cost ones, while they may be capable of decent rolling, usually cannot
take heavy loads. The rolls are too thin, and the frames not heavy duty enough.
What that means is that you can take only light "bites" with each pass through
the mill, or you risk breaking something. If you're working with narrow metal,
this is less an issue than if you're trying to use the full width of the roll.
You can certainly roll out small ingots of metal with any of these mills, but
with the cheap ones you'll have to take your time with more but lighter passes
through the rolls. The kicker is your hope to use the mill for texturing. Roll
printing, as it's often called, needs you to be able to emboss your full depth
of pattern into the metal usually in a single pass through the mill. Often it
requires at least a bit of a substantial bite to give a clear pattern. Whether
the small mills will do an adequate job of this will vary depending on the type
of pattern, the type of metal, and how wide the metal is, but the small mills
simply won't do all of it well. They will also have trouble producing very thin
metal (foil), where even slightly out of paralell and true rolls will mess up
the results. Still, I'd expect that if you're careful, either the small mill
sold by Contenti or the one from Otto Frei, would be mostly adequate for simple
uses. If buying from someone else (ebay) look very carefully to be sure it's
really the same mill from this different supplier. Some of those are junk, like
that Harbor Freight mill (which still has a place, but not so much if you're a
serious metalsmith rather than a sunday afternoon hobbyist)

The one other brand/type I've not mentioned yet are the Pepe brand mills. These
are an interesting situation. Pepe tools are mostly manufactured in eastern
europe, mostly the old soviet bloc nations that are now independent. Many of
these manufacturers used to be the places churning out things like soviet
fighter planes, and now need new work. The upshot is that these are expert
machinists who produce beautifully machined and looking tools. However, in
general, they have no idea what the tools they're making actually need to do.
They're made according to plans drawn up by Pepe, somewhere else, who may also
not really do any real engineering first. A number of other Pepe tools are
known for being almost ludicrously unusable because of this sort of system. An
example are the gorgeous dapping blocks and punches. Look great. Nicely
machined, and good steel. But the depressions in the dapping blocks are a full
180 degrees with a sharp clean edge, and the punches are exact fits for the
depressions in the block. That looks nice, but it means there's no clearance
for the metal. You cannot actually produce a proper hemisphere with these
blocks. A mistake caused by not understanding what the tool actually needs to
do. In the case of the Pepe rolling mills, I cannot tell you how they currently
stack up, but I CAN tell you that when they first hit the market, perhaps five
years ago, they looked great. Rio Grande company carried a bunch of them with
great fanfare. Within a year they were no longer sold because the damn things
kept breaking. Frames beautifully machined, but not strong enough. Gear teeth
and even rolls hardened so much they'd crack under load. My hope is that
someone at Pepe has reworked the specs so that the mills address these
shortcomings now, but I have no way to know if that's actually true. The
absence of these mills from the lines of a number of the major tools dealers
leads me to suspect that the Pepe mills may still have problems. But I don't
know.

By the way, on a similar vein, the most commonly broken parts on the little
Italian cheap mills are the simple bolts that hold the frames together. A stock
cheap part not up to the task. If you get one of these mills, check the
markings on the bolt heads on the frame to see what class they are, and if the
ordinary hardware store variety, replace them with better ones. That will
help.

Finally, keep in mind the old adage that the least expensive tool is often the
best quality one, for which you may initially have to pay more. This advice is
especially true for rolling mills, which need good quality design, materials,
and manufacture to do their job well for any length of time. There are many
fine rilling mills of the Durston/Cavalin/Dinkel brands, as well as other older
makes, that are still going strong after many decades of good service. I have
one sturdy old american made flat mill that at this point, is almost a hundred
years old, I think. My cavalin wire mill is 35 years old or more, and works
like new. It is doubtful that any of those small cheap mills would perform like
that. Buy a good mill now, and you'll have it for the rest of your career if
you wish, and take decent care of it. That's not money down the drain if you're
serious about your tools.

Peter Rowe
  #7  
Old March 11th 09, 05:51 PM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Abrasha
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Posts: 298
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

Heinrich Butschal wrote:
Abrasha schrieb:
FC... wrote:

...
I found a beautiful electric Dinkel for you on eBay. Unfortunately it
is in Germany. http://tinyurl.com/ahv879



Don´t say it too loud, the Austrians would be exhausted if You count them to
germany. :-)




Artikelstandort: Neuwied, Germany!

Besides, even if it weren't, what about "Der Anschluss"?

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com
  #8  
Old March 11th 09, 05:51 PM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Abrasha
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 298
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

FC... wrote:
Thanks for the info...

What about the PEPE mills, Are those any good ?

http://www.pepetools.com/viewcategory.php/categoryid/89

I found some of the above locally and wanted to get some feedback...

Cheers,

/FC...


Pepe tools are made in Russia, mediocre quality, but not all bad.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com
  #9  
Old March 12th 09, 06:09 PM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
FC...
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

I found this one at Rio and it looks like just the Rolling Mill I
might Need !

It looks like it might be of better quality than the PEPE unit. I
like the fact that it has a much wider 'FLAT" surface too. What do
you folks think... ?

DRM C130 with Reduction

http://www.durston.co.uk/lan-en/prod-m-drm130-en.htm

  #10  
Old March 12th 09, 06:10 PM posted to rec.crafts.jewelry
Heinrich Butschal[_3_]
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Posts: 21
Default I need to buy a 'Rolling Mill', any suggestions ?

Abrasha schrieb:
Heinrich Butschal wrote:
Abrasha schrieb:
FC... wrote:

...
I found a beautiful electric Dinkel for you on eBay. Unfortunately it
is in Germany. http://tinyurl.com/ahv879


Don´t say it too loud, the Austrians would be exhausted if You count them to
germany. :-)




Artikelstandort: Neuwied, Germany!


Sorry I didn´t read so far. Anyway it´s sold in the meantime.

Besides, even if it weren't, what about "Der Anschluss"?

the next politically and emotional mining field. :-)

Mit freundlichem Gruß,
Heinrich Butschal
--
Schmuck Gutachter und Schmuckverkauf http://www.butschal.de
Schmuck nach Maß anfertigen http://www.meister-atelier.de
Firmengeschenke und Ehrennadeln http://www.goldschmiede-meister.com
Schmuckmanufaktur http://www.schmuckfabrik.de
Schmuck gut verkaufen und günstig kaufen http://www.schmuck-boerse.com
 




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