Home made beading tool

[Mark Corkern]

So I have been looking at beading tools and was considering making one. I remembered that someone gave me a set of delta molding cutters that were made to mount on a tablesaw. I have several different designs including bead cutters. I was thinking of threading a 1/2" square bar and fastening the cutter to it. Has anyone ever tried this? Thanks

 

[Richard Coers]

Scraping on beads can be done, but the species of wood has a lot to do with the success. Incredibly easy to have tear out on the short grain. Tools like those sold be D-way are more friendly.

 

[Bill Blasic]

I took a Thompson 3/8" U gouge and ground it backwards and it makes a forever sharpenable beading tool.

 

[john lucas]

They are easy to make. My video on turning beads shows 3 that i have made. Just need a good file and some care.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjYehUsMdB4

 

[Richard Shelby]

This is made from 1/4" metal lathe bit stock, shaped by mini grinder, mounted in galvanized pipe.

 

[RichColvin]

This is from the AAW Vimeo videos

View: https://vimeo.com/125838621​

 

[Odie]

Scraping on beads can be done, but the species of wood has a lot to do with the success. Incredibly easy to have tear out on the short grain.

Therein lies the problem......the beading tool is shaped like a crescent.....and can only be used as a very basic scraper. Now, if you want to get a refined cut on difficult wood, the only way to do it is with a shearing cut, and the crescent shape prevents that as a possibility.

-----odie-----

 

[john lucas]

Yes, I turn almost all of my beads with either the skew or my 3/8" Thompson detail gouge. The main reason is I often make my beads different sizes. Especially if I run beads over the whole outside of a bowl. I will start small near the base and increase the size of each bead maybe a millimeter. So by the time I get to the top of a small bowl the bead is about twice the size of the one on the bottom. You would need about 15 custom sized beading tools to do that job. Here is an example of that. This is a skew practice piece. About 20" tall.

 

[Dennis J Gooding]

Therein lies the problem......the beading tool is shaped like a crescent.....and can only be used as a very basic scraper. Now, if you want to get a refined cut on difficult wood, the only way to do it is with a shearing cut, and the crescent shape prevents that as a possibility.

-----odie-----

You are right Odie if the tool is used in a scraping mode. However, the D-Way tools are intended to be used in a slicing mode (handle down, cutting edge up) and except for the point dead center on the bead, produce a shear cut. At least for the wood that I turn, they produce almost no noticeable tear out. By the way, I converted some of my old style scraper-type tools (I don't remember the brand) to work in a slicing mode by grinding in the sides of the tool near the cutting end until they intersect the bevel at a very small angle. (Sort of like sharpening a spindle gouge.)

 

[john lucas]

When you take a flat ground beading tool and start the cut by coming up from the bottom you are cutting all.wxcept that last tiny bit where it scraped the top off the bead. You just cut the top very lightly. They do not cut as clean as the Dway.