Door & Window Roll Forming Machines

What a door line actually makes

A door is not one profile. It is a frame that folds at the corners, a leaf or a curtain that closes the opening, and a track that guides it. Each of those is a separate roll formed section, and each has its own tolerance problem. That is why this page lists four machines rather than one: buyers who want a complete door production line normally buy two or three of them together.

The dividing line in the catalogue is between frames and panels. A frame is an open profile that is notched and folded on site or in the plant. A panel or a slat is a closed or semi closed section that has to look right on the face, because it is the part the customer sees every day.

Steel door frames: the miter notch is the machine

Any press brake can bend a door frame. What a roll forming line adds is the notch: the miter cut that lets the profile fold into a 90 degree corner without a weld. The punch unit also cuts hinge slots, the strike plate opening, the lock prep and the anchor holes, all before forming, so the finished profile comes off the line ready to assemble.

Our frame line runs 0.8 to 2.0 mm galvanized coil through 22 forming stations with a servo punch, at 15 to 20 m/min. In real output that is roughly 6 to 8 frames a minute, against 1 to 2 frames a minute by manual press brake work. The gap is not speed on the bend, it is the number of separate handling steps that disappear.

Gauge is the first thing to fix. A 1.2 mm frame suits a stud partition; a 1.6 to 2.0 mm frame suits a masonry opening with a fire rating. The roll design, the shaft diameter and the punch tonnage all follow that number, so deciding it late is expensive.

Garage door panels and the insulated option

Garage door panels are formed from 200 to 600 mm wide coil at 12 to 15 m/min, excluding punching and cutting. The line embosses the surface pattern and punches the hinge and handle positions in the same pass, which matters because a panel that is formed flat and punched later never lines up perfectly across a run.

There are two products here. A single skin panel is one formed sheet, sold on price and used on light domestic doors. A composite panel is two skins with polyurethane foam injected between them, and it is what the insulation value in a modern garage door actually comes from. The forming section is shared; the foaming press, the injection station and the curing time are not.

Roller shutter track and slat: one system, two machines

The track is the guide. It is an open channel formed from 0.8 to 1.5 mm galvanized or cold rolled strip at 8 to 15 m/min, and the version that sells in volume is the curved track, because real openings sit in real walls with returns and soffits. Assembly holes are punched in line so the installer does not drill on a ladder.

The slat is the curtain. Each slat is a closed interlocking section, and the whole door is a stack of them hinged together, which means the tolerance on one slat multiplies by the number of slats in the opening. That is why slat lines are specified on repeatability rather than on top speed.

Slats are also the most varied product in this family. Hollow slats for warehouses and factories, foam filled slats for kitchens and shop fronts, PU filled slats for insulation and wind load, and small sections for vehicle and van doors. Each variant is a different roll set on the same machine base.

Window profiles on the same machine family

Window frames, sashes, mullions, sills and trim are roll formed on the same architecture as door frames. The section is different: thinner in gauge, normally 0.5 to 1.5 mm, but wider across the face, up to about 250 mm, at 10 to 25 m/min. That width is what makes the roll design the critical part, because a wide shallow section springs back more than a narrow deep one.

Steel and aluminum both run, but not with the same rolls. Steel strip at 0.5 to 1.2 mm forms predictably and holds the section. Aluminum alloy is softer, wider and easier to mark, so the roll surfaces are polished and the pass schedule is gentler. If you plan to run both materials on one machine, say so before the design is fixed rather than after.

Specifications at a glance

How to specify a door or window line

Five answers decide most of the quotation. The section drawing with the fold or lock geometry, because that fixes the stand count. The material and coating you will actually buy, because bare, galvanized and pre painted strip need different roll finishes. Every size the line must cover, because a frame line that runs one width and a frame line that runs four are different machines. The punch pattern, because hinge and lock positions are tooling, not software. And the output you need per shift, because that decides whether you buy one line or a line plus a stacker.

If you are still comparing forming methods, our guide to choosing, operating and maintaining a roll forming machine covers the same decisions from a wider angle. To work out how far a coil will run before you commit to a tonnage, the metal coil calculator does the arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions