Niagara bead roller

In digging around in my catalogs, I find my info about Niagaras is older- the 164 must be a more recent designation, as I can find NO.s 1 thru 4 for deep throat beading machines. The number 1 thru 3 were rated at 20 gage, and weigh 100 to 170lbs, depending on size. The number 4 was 26 gage, and weighed 50lbs.

The deep throat models havea bound bar on the bottom which the stop slides on, and a casting on top.

Usually on the beading machines the dies have a round hole, with a keyway slot, and then there is a nut that holds them on, with two holes for a pin spanner to tighten it. This is the way my Pexto works- and from catalog illustrations, it looks like Niagaras worked that way too.

Cant you measure your existing dies?

Roper Whitney, who owns Pexto, still makes dies for theirs- here is a link to the styles-

look under beading- does yours resemble a number 622?

Here is another style of bead roller- while the pexto's may fit your machine, these definitely wont, but they are interesting nonetheless Williams sells some rolls, and claims his are interchangeable with tennsmith and pexto- since Niagara hasnt made em in so long, it could be he just doesnt include them for that reason- and he also sells blanks, ready to machine to your own profile- Tennsmith still makes these machines, their rolls might fit And then there are the chinese imports- Jet, Grizzly, et al bring em in, mostly from TSMC (Taiwan Sheet Metal Corporation) as far as I know- again, they may be interchangeable. Check with Jet for spare rolls.

If he doesnt reply..drop Leigh at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com an email. If anyone will know if they are available..he will.

Gunner

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The Niagara has what looks like a 1/8" pin drive, but maybe the Pexto keyway drive type rolls would work if the key width is 1/8", and the bore, width etc. are the same. Maybe I can get some roll dimen. from Pexto. The rolls on the Niagara are on 1.900 centers at the mid position. Also looks like Mcmaster Carr sells rolls for $60/pair. McMasters unit actually looks pretty similar, (to the Niagara), in the catalog, so maybe the rolls are similar too.

oldjag wrote in article ...

First thing I would do would be to measure the shaft diameter and the center-to-center distance between the shafts when they are parallel.

That will put you in a more informed position to discuss whether or not the dies from other manufacturers will fit your particular machine.

For example, my bead roller uses 15/16" shafts mounted on two-inch centers.

Any die built on two-inch centers with a bore 15/16" or less can be adapeted to my roller.

I could also make reducers for those bores that are over 15/16", but to really work well, I need those two-inch centers.

The 1.90" center to center dimen. noted is with the shafts set parallel..I made up some beading rollers yesterday from 1045 bar stock , then heat treated them 45 minutes at 1450 F. I tried for the first time, purging the oven with argon at a low flow rate, probably a few liters per minute, this seemed to really cut down on the scaling I usually get. After a quench in brine they cleaned up nicely with scotchbrite. The rollers seemed to work fine on some 22 gauge. Now I would like make up some edge turning rolls.

oldjag wrote in article ...

If you are really interested in making your own dies, there are several examples of die profiles in the bead roller sections at:

Eastwood Company

and

Williams Lowbuck Tools