(By Loren Krussow) – When an upstairs bedroom in our home became unused, we chose to do something we’d always dreamed of and build a game room. We painted the walls a dark “bar room” red, then got out our collection of oddball souvenirs, photographs, and beer lights to see what could be tacked up onto them. I had enough old car license plates to plaster the whole ceiling. Of course we put in a new pool table as the centerpiece, then installed a traditional hanging lamp fixture above. Remaining was an old ceiling fan…we wanted to keep it, but with its brown plywood blades and now-unneeded lighting, it was some ugly stuff.
I got the idea for what to do with it while using a bead-roller to form aluminum panels for a customer’s sand rail.
Bead rollers can in minutes add features such as steps, rolled edges, and of course “beading” (a raised, rounded shape in the middle of a flat area) into sheet metal that might take extensive tool or hammer work to do by conventional means. Thin material is forcefully squeezed between profiles cut into steel forming wheels which then transfer their shape onto the panel along a line which can be straight or curved according to operator desire. The easily-changed and modified wheels mount out on the end of a frame to allow maneuvering room and at the end of driven shafts are geared together so both turn evenly. They can be powered either by a hand crank or electric motor and the forming pressure is adjustable. The area where the part is being pressed into shape is at any one time small and concentrated so there is little warpage put into the larger part. A few passes in a bead roller can quickly transform plain flat sheet into an interesting and professional-looking panel while adding a little strength as well.
Our particular machine was originally sold by Pro Tools in kit form. When its small speed-adjustable gear motor wore out we fitted a larger industrial-quality unit and still have less than a grand into the whole thing. It is a genuinely fun tool to operate and we have used up a good bit of sheet aluminum just playing with it.
Our game-room ceiling fan now has .050″ aluminum blades made the same way as race-car panels. With experimentation we came up with a single-lick flame and border design which was first laid out with a marker pen and then formed by following the line. A Superior mag wheel center cap now resides where the lamp once was, held on by a simple bracket made from metal plumber’s tape.
Car guys usually chuckle at our hot-rodded ceiling fan but most others don’t get it. With all the automotive-themed furniture available for homes and garages these days, along with some pretty bizarre new fan designs, I should think it would be a natural.
Here is a link to Pro Tools’ line of metal forming devices, and other manufacturers offer inexpensive bead rollers as well.