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#1
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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