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The versatile Mate Rollerball™ tool can add strength to lighter gauge material, create an emboss to provide additional clearance for hardware or features or add visual enhancements. Some of these applications allow fabricators to use thinner materials or eliminate secondary operations. The results include reduced production time and, more important than ever these days, material and labor cost savings. The Mate Rollerball is for machines that can hold the ram down while simultaneously moving the sheet around on the X and/or Y-axis.

With its standard beading configuration, strengthening ribs and cross brakes can be added to sheet metal while still in the punch press. Let’s face it, creating cross brakes in a press brake is time-consuming and not highly accurate. Since cross brakes typically can’t be produced using a back gauge on a press brake, additional time is required to lay out the bend lines and hit these lines accurately during forming. Rollerball lets you use your punch press to add these features, increasing the accuracy of the locations and eliminating the need for the time consumed at the press brake.

Formed ribs can add structural integrity to sheet metal, allowing you to fabricate parts using thinner material than described in the original design. Thinner material equals cost savings in most cases. A formed rib courtesy of the Mate Rollerball can also replace a continuous rib formed by a standard forming tool. A standard forming tool might require tens to hundreds of hits and minutes to produce a strengthening rib over the length of a sheet. Using the Mate Rollerball may reduce those to just a few seconds and with a much better-looking result.

The Mate Rollerball also comes with a shortened insert to create offset forms (see photo). Whether it’s for clearance required for additional features or existing hardware, a 3D appearance of the final product, or a subtle change in material levels, the offset feature can help. The offset configuration consists of one standard and one shortened insert in the upper tool to create a multi-level form. Depending on the material’s location and direction of travel, the result can be a formed upward or a formed downward offset.

So, whether you have a great new idea or an old idea listed above, let the Mate Rollerball help cut your material and labor costs. You will reduce your production times and improve your accuracy, all while your parts are still in the punch press. Available in several tooling styles, including Thick Turret, Trumpf Style and Murata Wiedemann. Download the Solution Bulletin. Watch an animation of how Rollerball works in a Trumpf Style environment.