Tools & Fabrication - tubing bead roller

i want to roll beads on end of turbing for charge piping and rad hoses. but i can't justify buying the bead form jr.
was looking at the harbor freight bead roller for 100bucks. has anyone ever tried using one of these for rolling beads on end of tubing? just wondering if you can set the throat depth stop to set t he bead on tubing. but wondering if anyone elzse tried this before i try to purchase one

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/custom-fabrication/324132-homemade-intercooler-pipe-bead-tool.html

making one for myself soon

Crude looking but if it works

typically i do stainless. i found a bead roller for plumbing. but wondered if anyone has use it before. will need to find a link to it.

Last shop I worked at had a hand operated bead form tool and it was the cats ass http://www.beadform.com/

yeah i have been eyeing those up. but can't justify the cost. just looking into other alternatives. have used the bead form and it is kick ass.

At the shop i work at we just weld a bead, sometimes two, around the end of the tubing. It works just as good as a bead rolled in it. We have a bead roller, but its for sheet not tubing.

that is what i do now. just looks better when they are rolled.

:cheers::cheers:Acidrain088....Good IdeA.....

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/custom-fabrication/324132-homemade-intercooler-pipe-bead-tool.html

making one for myself soon

yeah thats true jeff, but it looks better if your slick like me. :rotflmao:. Our bead roller will do charge piping, but not small diameter pipe for rad hoses and such.

found a new version of the parker WWII bead tool. should be here in two weeks.

so we can call you and youll bring it up to our shop when we need to use it?

or you can bring your peices to shop lol. i will let you know more details once i get it on how well it works. pretty excited about it.

lol. Yeah let me know because if it works well then Ill talk to Curt about aquiring one for the shop.

How's business going anyways Jeff? Doing alot of fabricating lately?

been slammed here. i said i was getting out of fab work. instead i can't keep tubing in stock. just bought two pickup truck loads in last two weeks. just restocked today and it will be gone by end of week.

I've got the harborfreight one, I have bead rolled thin sheetmetal panels and aluminum tubing. It will not due steel tubing, it may do it if you heat it up with a torch.

wow, you really picked up alot of fab work. Thats great to hear. You making money on it or are you still wondering why it seems like you lose money when you pick up the welder?

Ive been working on this crazy exhaust for the GTM that was at WOW. Ill post up some pics when I get more done. Im about 4 days into it and about 2/3rds done.

i make more money wrenching but my heart is to build shit.
i just did true duals on a 86 iroc. it had long tubes so i did 3 inch true duals with x pipe up over axle and out the back like stock using SLP resonators for mufflers. it had plenty of ground clearance too. turned out pretty badass i even impressed myself lol

lol thats cool.

Heres that GTM exhaust. Some of it still needs finish welded and I have to find locations, cut the pipes and install the 3 cutouts per side. How would you like to tackle this jumbled up mess of pipes? The welds look good, but my shitty cell phone camera wont pick up the detail.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/birdie1218/Lees%20stuff/exhaust1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/birdie1218/Lees%20stuff/exhaust2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/birdie1218/Lees%20stuff/exhaust4.jpg
This is the collector pipe I handmade. The collector flange on a LS7 is oval. What a PITA this was to make and make it look decent.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/birdie1218/Lees%20stuff/exhaust3.jpg

looks good. one day whenever i get a camera to take pics i will have to show you some stuff i have built. that doesn't look too bad to build. just takes time that is all

going from the collector up to the cats was the most difficult part. It is very difficult to remove that collector pipe from the manifold. I couldn't tack anything in the car being that the body is on and the rest of the engine compartment is pretty much finished.

It did take a long time to make it all and try to make both sides look close to the same. I spent a lot of time getting a good fit where the pipes meet. This is alot different than making exhaust that is under the car because you can see everything so easy.

true. just takes time. i have been building exhaust and charge piping for last few years. i can usually eye it up pretty well anymore.

my pipe welding and fitting helped the layout, but it isn't exactly the same. I think I spent too much time preping the pipe to be welded for what it is. I beveled all edges on the belt sander, ground and DA sanded each end of every piece to remove aluminization, and drum sanded the inside edge of every end. I know it probably isn't needed, but I really take pride in making my welds look good. Tig welding that dirty aluminized pipe sucks if it isn't cleaned properly in my opinion.

What pipe do you use for your exhaust? Do you mig or tig weld it?

i use 409 stainless. i will agree that aluminize sucks. that is what i use when i build 4inch exhaust. and will agree doesn't look or weld as good as the stainless. i usually stock 2.5 and 3 inch here. tell curt to get some off me next time if you want to try it. it is cheaper for me to go with stainless than aluminized for how much i buy of it.

that sounds like a plan. We get the flowmaster stuff for free though, so I know it wont be cheaper. I wish we made it all out of stainless, because I think welding stainless is easier than carbon steel.

the price of materials is neglible compared to labor cost lol. although i would be hard pressed to go stainless if i got aluminized for free too

yeah, its a tough decision because we also get all of our flowmaster mufflers for free too. Running stainless pipe and not running a stainless muffler seems kinda stupid too. What kind of stainless mufflers do you run?

Went in today for a few hours and finish welded everything and welded on all of the flanges. 8 pairs of flanges it took to get that thing together.

i usually run magnaflow or customer supplied mufflers. lot of times i let the customers pick out the muffler. that way i am not responsible for how it sounds.

Thats a good idea. It really bugs me how most younger car enthusiasts mistake loud for a good tone. I like the sound of a magnaflow muffler though, they seem to sound pretty good.

All of our exhaust gets sent to Jason for powdercoat, so that helps with the corrosion protection. I think we should do stainless for some cars though, it looks so much better to me.