Rolling Mill Projects

Furniture

• Fabricators have long looked to metal for furniture making -- particularly modern furniture as most metal stock is straight, lending itself to contemporary designs. Rolling mills, however, can convert straight stock into bends of varying radii and complex curves; they can even roll contours into edges and flat stock. Rolling mills open doors in furniture making that had been limited to the use of straight-cut stock. Roll-forming can bend it however you like it.

Built-Ins

• Built-ins -- such as the wooden built-in features popular in the Arts and Crafts movement are typically quite traditional. Where roll forming can bring metal furniture into more classical shapes, it can bring a modern material to the traditional world of built-ins. Roll-formed flanges can dramatically reduce the fabricating time and effort required to build cabinet frames, for example, to be mounted just as a wooden unit would be mounted. Flat stock, for example, can be turned into a linear or continuous tab, which can be screwed into studs, providing an L- or Z-shaped mounting structure. Once your custom metal mounting tab is screwed into wall studs, it gives you a secure metal surface to attach metal built-ins with machine screws or tack-welds.

Frames

• Whether you're building picture frames or some other frames, getting four 90-degree angles just right can be a trick. Roll-forming your own angle- or channel-stock can give you the dimensions or aesthetics you want while making it much easier to create a frame. You can make one continuous section of channel, then notch the face of your frame with an abrasive cut-off wheel, leaving what will be the very corner of the frame intact. With the notch removed, bend the corner into place, rather than clamping and tack welding. You can put a little tack weld on the joint, then finish it with a sanding flap wheel.

Trays

• Trays can be constructed similarly to frames, though their function and design might be quite different. The rolling mill gives you many options to construct the edge or lip of a tray. The floor of the tray can be the same material as the lip; it can be sheet metal, or even wood. You can take it a step beyond pure function by rolling a decorative contour into the edging, not unlike fine silver trays, but with a utilitarian bent.