My quest for the perfect ring roller

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I do a lot of ornamental sculpture and I like to work in 1/4 round because a)it's cheap and b) it's pretty easy to work with.  So naturally one eventually stumbles upon the ol' harbor freight ring roller . It is a pretty decent machine for considering it only costs $69 (I actually just bought my second one, I wore the rollers out on the first one.) Anyways, anyone who has one knows that rolling rings is hard work, so I thought I would bolt a motor to it. I found a surplus garage door opener  for $10 and gave it a shot.  and it worked for a little while. but eventually it fell apart despite my attempts to hold it together with hose clampsso I was cruising the  one day and found a nice 60:1 gearmotor buried in the mud. I pay the guy $20 run home and plug it in and TADA! it actually works, and it's reversible toboot.So i set out to rebuild my ring roller again with a better powertrainfootswitchand it  though, I think that 1/4 hp isn't quite enough. When rolling small rings it seems to work pretty hard. so in no time at all this is what I havethen I cut them all upand you might ask, what are you gonna do with all those rings? weld them up for your wife's garden, then she really isn't all that upset when you skip dinner because you are "busy" working on something.Last edited by zora; 07-04-2010 at 04:05 AM.
Reply:Did it roll the cigs for you too?
Reply:Nice work! Thats a really good idea!  I like how creative you were with all of your applications.  I have been wanting to get a ring roller and a scroll bender for quite some time to do stuff for the garden etc but just have not been able to justify the cost to myself yet! HAHAHad the garage door motor setup not broke I dont know how long the motor would have held out for.  I have heard quite a few people trying to repurpose them and not knowing that the duty cycle on that type of motor is really low.  Only 10% or something like that.  The gearbox motor is probably going to last you quite a bit longer.
Reply:Nice job.  I have one of those.  Nice to have when I need it.  Watch those rollers with those gloves on.
Reply:Freakin' Awesome....  Would love something like that!Cheers,Miller Diversion 165120 amp Buzz BoxVictor Oxy/Ace Oxy/LPGSmith "Little" Oxy/LPGHypertherm Powermax 30Lot's of Misc. tools n' crap....
Reply:Originally Posted by tapwelderNice job.  I have one of those.  Nice to have when I need it.  Watch those rollers with those gloves on.
Reply:Originally Posted by bert the weldernicely done!!!! I'll second the above re: the gloves. Just a bad idea. Dirty hands are better than pulped fingers!
Reply:wow thanks for the post im going to be looking into something like this in the very near future.