Arthur's gallery;

here.

Enjoy!

Robert, I'm thinking of painting the rolls as if they've been heavily used and are on the way to be reconditioned, so probably a dark rust colour?

Otherwise I reckon that a smooth coat of silver/steel and a light mist of rust would work for newly turned rolls.

Paul.

I don't think the rolls would get very rusty, as they would have been used in a hot, dry, envirionment- there might be superficial rust if they were stored outside prior to re-turning. The colour would be more akin to a dark steel colour. The rolls were cast steel, with different shapes depending on what sort of section they were being used to roll. Chocks would have been hefty chunks of wood, to avoid damaging the surface of the roll.

My father served his time as a roll-turner at RT&B's Machynys Foundry in Llanelli (or Llanelly, as it was when he started)- he used to say that the rolls were very precisely machined, especially as the ones he worked on would be used to make thin plate for tinplating.

Brian

If you go to my post on Sinningrove I have put photos of rolls on there, I hope its helps.

Thanks guys.

That's given me a good starting point on painting. I had a feeling that the chocks would be wooden, when I worked as a turner I had various wooden blocks next to my lathe to stand jobs on.

I'm a bit wary of painting the rolls in 'new' condition as the paintwork and finish would need to be extremely smooth to look even close to a freshly turned or ground roll. And I reckon getting the colour close to freshly turned steel would be rather difficult.

12CSVT, the photos in your thread are certainly very usefull, thanks for posting them.

Paul.