Hi Jim Rolling tube straight from the roll is the easiest but you will get a much stronger and more stable tube with the grain perpendicular to the mandrel. There are easier, less frustrating ways to get the first turn of paper to stay on the mandrel ;)
Thanks, If I start having tubes rupture I will look into your suggestion. Seems like it would be hard to get paper wide enough to make a tube with one piece. I may look at your slitting machine. I have been cutting rolls of paper on a bandsaw and it is a bit tricky.
@@jmhannnon Hi Jim I just convert standard 2ft, 3ft and 4ft rolls of pure kraft into multilayer sheets 2ft, 3ft or 4ft long x 478mm or 706mm wide. NEPT tubes are/were made with multilayered sheets but i guess they made theirs on something more hi tech than a large diameter steel tube supported by 4 bearings. My bandsaw is too light duty for cutting rolls of kraft as they are akin to an 8" hardwood log. If you have a good bandsaw i would say the best bet is to make a sled so you can secure the roll to the sled and push the sled into the blade. The tape slitter was a necessity because at the time 1/2 tape, gummed or otherwise was either completely unavailable or ridiculously overpriced. 200m rolls of 72mm wide gummed tape are more common here and relatively cheap. If you make a slitter , be mindful when using it that the blades are razor sharp and very unforgiving :)
@@colspyro A sled is a good idea. I will build one when I need more tape. The problem with the bandsaw is holding the roll tight enough that the blade does not turn the roll when cutting. A sled with clamps would work. Commercial paper slitting machines use round blades like those used in rotary fabric cutters. They rotate while cutting so that all of the blade edge is used. I suspect that round blades would last longer.
@@jmhannnon I use toothless blades (3" slit saw blades with the teeth ground off) to cut tubes to size but thats all ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-blcWXBk2kds.html I think the sled should work quite well. A little dry spray silicon lubricant on the blade might be worth a try too. I only use the slitter machine to make tape (plain kraft and gummed) for pasting purposes. For tubes i use the full roll width which only needs to be cut to length. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WBYzVPEmg2Q.html My tube roller is hand cranked like yours but it has a different roller/mandrel arrangement. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WBYzVPEmg2Q.html
I can see a couple things I would change in the design- first, having the rubber roller behind the crank roller might be easier for both rolling and removing the tube; also gives a more natural cranking. Second, do away with the ball bearings and just have the crank roller run in U shaped pieces made of bronze or aluminum. Simpler and faster. Also, perhaps have a gauge to limit the glue bead at the ends- less mess Nice prototype though!
im not picturing what you mean how is something going to roll in a u shaped piece? I guess it would roll in the pocket of the "u"? But then how do you keep the roll from moving around or up from the pocket?
Thank you for the link. May have to give this a try. I've seen a couple of similar systems people have built and look incredibly simple to use in making high quality tubes.
