Tube & Pipe Mill Products

Tube & Pipe Mills

Designing and manufacturing tube and pipe mills is a core product for Rafter Equipment. With over a century of experience in building mills, we can surely provide you with a custom tube mill to suit your specific application. Your new mill will be engineered and built right in our USA-based factory, using our own personnel, equipment and machine shop. Doing so allows us to better control both the quality and delivery of your mill. We can build exactly the machine you need:

Production & Product Specifications

Outside diameters from 3/16″ to 12-1/2″.
Wall thicknesses from 0.010″ to 0.625″.
Outside diameter-to-wall thickness ratios from 6.5 to 100:1
Production speeds over 1,000 ft/min.

Strip Entry Tables

Strip entry tables are used to accurately guide the strip material into the first forming (e.g., breakdown) pass on the forming mill. With many of today’s newer form tool designs, it is crucial that the strip be centered properly. We offer entry tables with simple edge scarfing and without. Edge scarfing is used to remove the oxidation layer off the strip edge in order to promote better weld quality.

Roll Stands

All roll stands are NOT created equal. The Rafter roll stands, both driven and idle, incorporate many small, seemingly inconsequential features that greatly improve the usability and serviceability of the machine.

driven roll stands

Roll stands are designated by the roll shaft diameter. For example, our RT-1000 stand is a 1″ shaft machine, and our RT-8000 stand is an 8″ shaft machine. Our single-point adjustment (SPA) top roll shaft adjustment has essentially become a standard feature on all new mills. It also can easily be retrofitted to your existing mill – whether it’s a Rafter machine or not.

The Rafter SPA design can be further enhanced with the addition of power adjustment. This can be a simple open-loop, operator controlled feature or a full-blown, closed-loop, recipe-type setup system. We’ve done them both!

Idle Side Roll Stands

With today’s more demanding products, the need for a stronger idle side roll stand has never been more apparent. The Rafter idler stands have been refined to provide the best combination of strength and usability. We offer both a tie-bar design and a quick-change “flip-top” design.