Who Has a Ring Roller ?

I suppose a basic question to start is what size and section type are you thinking about. I've formed 25mmx 25mmx 3mm angle into a circular ring about 550mm diameter using my fly press and a former which fitted each side of the web so it bent the hard way, it required a bit of tweeking to correct twist once done but that was easy enough to do using a vice and a piece of bar with a L cutout to grip it. The fly press is nominally 5 long tons or tonne, bend radius was controlled by adjusting the stroke, the former pressing in the centre between 2 lower support pieces. Later parts were sent out to a specialised section bender that had equipment to bend troublesome sections quite easily.

Thinking about Jim's question about wheels for his saw mill, and my simplistic replies for brute forcing a solution it made me think about something I need to make at some point, and I was wondering. Who has a heavy duty ring roller? How heavy of material can you roll with it. I am thinking basic low carbon hot rolled or cold rolled steel. Probably hot rolled. I don't have anything heavy enough for the material I am considering (and already have left over from other projects)

My alternative for my single application is to make some radius forming dies for my hydraulic press. Then I could hot or cold form as needed.

----------------------------------- I looked at the HF ring roller for making large steel wheels but wasn't convinced I needed it, or large steel wheels with rims within its limited capacity. I've made wheels from slices of 6" SS pipe with welded spokes and needle bearing hubs. Perhaps a larger one could be assembled from scrap plates welded to the rough shape, hammered flat, and then CNC cut into donuts with spokes and a hub at the cost of a month's membership at the Maker Space. Bolting the donuts together would avoid weld distortion.

The donuts could be stepped to form the crown and then the steps ground smooth enough by spinning the wheel with an angle grinder crossing diagonally to both cut and turn. That's how I crowned the motorcycle front tire. The tensioner pressure gauge shows little variation as the wheels and blade move and I needed less than 15 minutes to adjust tracking.