You'd best turn the wood on a lathe with an automatic or hand crank feed, or else there would be subtle irregularities in the diameters from hand turning. My choice would be hard maple, the tight grain and consistency would allow more even wear. I wonder if the rollers were tappered at the ends to a larger diameter, would there be less tendency to ride off of them? Laminating the blocks up would be advantageous I think, both in the ease in finding the thinner material you need, and in the resistance to warp. If one is dripping sweat, use a waterproof glue. A metal sleeve glued into the roller ends with a bearing pressed into it seems like one way to do it and the quietest, or the shaft passing all the way through and into the bearings on the frame. Probably less heat generated to damage the wood the second way, but certainly would require a long drill bit and careful set-up. I guess that the shafts could go into the wood only part way, enough to give good glue adhesion, then additional securing with each shaft welded through a plate attached to the wood on the ends. Fitting the shafts first then turning would give a straight roller. The whole affair with the frame seems like a bit of a fiddle, and would end up being pretty expensive to market. Making in fairly large quantities would get the costs down somewhat, but probably not much promise as a money making proposition. Still, wood rollers are very cool.
Dennis Young Hotaka, Japan
> I would like to hear from some of the lurkers in the shadows that are on
> this list about building these? Do they think that there may be a demand for
> something such as this etc.
>
> Peter Koskinen
> Chapel Hill, NC
> List,
>
> I have a friend who is thinking about making some wood rollers to sell. Now
> I know that New England Yankee used to build them in the 60's but I haven't
> seen any since. Does anybody have an opinion on these and if the response is
> favorable, should they be fairly easy to sell?