Since Bead Rollers have become so affordable it is more and more common for home garages and pros alike to have a bead roller at their disposal. The base model kits come with enough to get you adding looks and strength to your sheet metal panels but there are a few extra accessories you can add that will help you do better work and open your possibilities for additional bead profiles. I decided to list me Top 3 Favorite Bead Roller Accessories below.
Eastwood Bead Roller Drive Motor Kit- This kit is a game changer. It allows you to easily adapt your hand crank bead roller to power. The kit includes a powerful motor and gear box that won’t take up much space and fits most standard hand crank bead rollers. We include a speed control on the motor and a small foot pedal that allows you to get both hands free and gives you the ultimate control. This drive motor system will pay you back in the time you save almost instantly. Setup time is about 15-20 minutes and requires only a few hand tools.
COB LED Flexible Work Light– Getting good light when bead rolling can be a problem no matter how good the lighting is in your work space. I’ve tried many different methods from wearing a head lamp to clamping a light on the panel I’m bead rolling. I’ve found that the best solution is the Flexible COB LED Work Light. It has a heavy magnetic base that attaches to my bead roller and I can bend the neck to direct the light right on where the dies contact the metal. These lights take standard AA batteries and last a very long time. I like to keep one at my bead roller and on a lot of my other larger tools in the shop for just the same reason.
Offset Bead Roller Dies- These dies alone will open up the possibilities of your bead roller greatly. These dies can create a joggle or step in your panel. The nice thing is that you can offset the dies and open up the offset or space between the dies and create custom steps in panels. I’ve found that just by changing my die configuration I can customize my beads and also work to recreate factory steps and joggles in panels for restoration work. These dies will fit any bead roller with 22MM driveshafts and change easily with an allen wrench.