need advice rolling aluminum sheet

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I need to roll 48" x 3/16" aluminum plate. Can this be done manually? What size rolls?Has anyone built one? Any help would be great. Thanks!
Reply:never done it, ........how small of a diameter do you need to roll?go to youtube and search for DIY sheet metal rollingthere are guys doing it with a large metal pipe, on thinner gauge. you'd need a huge pipe and good luck
Reply:The biggest hand crank rolls made commercially are 16 gage x 48". And even then, a lot of 16 gage rolls are motorized.The hand rolls use a gear reduction to make it easier to crank.And they are big, beefy machines.For instance, look at the size, and weight, of this one.[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjNCpNVoRL4[/ame]And it is NOT big enough to do what you want.3/16" aluminum is power roll territory. I have a set of 14 gage power rolls that would, just barely, do that job. mine is similar to these- http://www.coletuve.com/catalogs/slip_rolls.pdfI would say, at an absolute minimum, you would need 4" diameter rolls. 5" would be better. and 3hp, with gear reduction, would be about right. No reason you couldnt build one, assuming you have basic machine shop capability- its not that complicated. However, I think you will be way ahead of the game if you just pay somebody who already has a $15,000 set of rolls to do it for you.