Beaded Face frames

[Justin Leiwig]

Today I practiced beading and jack mitering some poplar for the upcoming laundry room cabinet project. :eek::mad::confused::(

Let me tell you...this is going to be a hair pulling experience. Getting them exactly perfect to my eyes was not an easy task. I'm thinking it may actually be worth it to buy the chamfer bit and grind off the bearing post like Gary Katz and others advocate. Admittedly these will be painted, so there can be some fudge factor but I'd rather do it with the tablesaw. Norm makes it look so easy!

Anyway..just a vent post. Thanks for letting me whine!

[Karl Brogger]

If its painted, and you don't see the joint anyway. Why not just apply the bead to the inside of a standard face frame? Its not the journey, it the end result.

[Joe Chritz]

I'm with Karl, for a paint project applied beads are the way to go.

I'm playing with a method of doing them on the CNC with a chamfer bit with no bearing and a set of stops.

They are certainly not as easy as they appear.

Joe

[Justin Leiwig]

Its not the journey, it the end result.

I disagree. Otherwise I would label it work! ;)

[James Phillips]

I am doing some beaded face frames for kitchen cabinets and I add the bead as a separate piece using a pin nailer. I bet you cannot tell. The bead is small so you may not see it in the pictures

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b371/jphillips97/IMG_3398-1.jpg

[Jim Becker]

Yes, this is more difficult work, but...make jigs to hold your workpieces for the intricate cuts. These are not "hard to do"; rather, they are hard to do the same multiple times. Jigging solves that. Yes, it would be easier to do it with applied moldings, but this is a great opportunity to learn the task on a painted project so that you can do it again when paint is not involved in the future.

As an aside, the double beaded trim in our entire addition (and that I carried into the previously existing house) had to have this done at every door opening, etc. The trim carpenters who worked on the addition were so good at this, they were doing it with a miter saw. (Don't ask...I couldn't watch...LOL) When I duplicated the task into the existing house, I used hand tools...and I still have my fingers!

[Justin Leiwig]

Yes, this is more difficult work, but...make jigs to hold your workpieces for the intricate cuts. These are not "hard to do"; rather, they are hard to do the same multiple times. Jigging solves that. Yes, it would be easier to do it with applied moldings, but this is a great opportunity to learn the task on a painted project so that you can do it again when paint is not involved in the future.

As an aside, the double beaded trim in our entire addition (and that I carried into the previously existing house) had to have this done at every door opening, etc. The trim carpenters who worked on the addition were so good at this, they were doing it with a miter saw. (Don't ask...I couldn't watch...LOL) When I duplicated the task into the existing house, I used hand tools...and I still have my fingers!

Thanks Jim, That's my line of thinking as well. Eventually this style will find it's way to a cherry bath vanity and a couple other projects I have in mind.

If I wanted to take the easy road and apply the molding I should have just bought RTA cabinets and not be building them myself. Just my opinion, but woodworking is a hobby, and thus I can take the time and enjoyment to learn difficult techniques that some don't wish to. It's not for everyone, some get to the point where they are pressured to finish stuff and take shortcuts, and to me this is the point it's no longer a hobby, but a second job.

[Sonny Edmonds]

Not sure what you are looking for, Justin, but face beading shouldn't be that hard to do.
I used a Craftsman molding head on my old Craftsman 100 table saw to do these (and it is a 3 bead cutter if I remember right) :
Damn! They still sell them! (http://www.sears.com/shc/s/search_10153_12605?keyword=molding+head) Glad to see that! :eek:

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/skylight2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/moldingfp2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/colume1.jpg
__________________________________________________ ____________
This one is 10' 6" tall. I had to splice lengthwise pieces to make the blank long enough from standard 97" MDF. That was fun to figure out with a locked miter bit. ;)

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/colume3.jpg

And I agree, if you can't have fun doing it, then why bother?
I recommend you get a feeder if you plan to venture far into making your own moldings. It will be sooo much easier and consistent. ;) :)

[Justin Leiwig]

Not sure what you are looking for, Justin, but face beading shouldn't be that hard to do.
I used a Craftsman molding head on my old Craftsman 100 table saw to do these (and it is a 3 bead cutter if I remember right) :
Damn! They still sell them! (http://www.sears.com/shc/s/search_10153_12605?keyword=molding+head) Glad to see that! :eek:

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/skylight2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/moldingfp2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/colume1.jpg
__________________________________________________ ____________
This one is 10' 6" tall. I had to splice lengthwise pieces to make the blank long enough from standard 97" MDF. That was fun to figure out with a locked miter bit. ;)

http://home.earthlink.net/~pie/images/Moldings/colume3.jpg

And I agree, if you can't have fun doing it, then why bother?
I recommend you get a feeder if you plan to venture far into making your own moldings. It will be sooo much easier and consistent. ;) :)

Nice, but I'm referencing a different type of bead applied to a face frame tha requires jack mitering so that the bead looks continuous around the perimiter of the square.

[Jim Becker]

I just remembered I had this picture online of the miter work on our trim in the addition...

http://toscax.us/blog/uploaded_images/trim-9-755774.jpg

The bead is integral to the base and door trim, so each joint had to be carefully prepared with the bead mitered.

[Jeff Duncan]

If you have a decent sliding jig or a sliding attachment for your tablesaw that's the way I do them. Makes for a very clean and fairly easy cut. You have to be organized though and have everything ready to go at the same time. otherwise your going to be pulling your hair. I do both angled cuts first then clean out the center with a dado blade. If it needs any fine tuning then the chisels come out.
I've read about the other technique you refer to and it seems pretty clever, but since I've had good luck with the tablesaw I've never tried it.

good luck,
JeffD

[Justin Leiwig]

If you have a decent sliding jig or a sliding attachment for your tablesaw that's the way I do them. Makes for a very clean and fairly easy cut. You have to be organized though and have everything ready to go at the same time. otherwise your going to be pulling your hair. I do both angled cuts first then clean out the center with a dado blade. If it needs any fine tuning then the chisels come out.
I've read about the other technique you refer to and it seems pretty clever, but since I've had good luck with the tablesaw I've never tried it.

good luck,
JeffD

Planning is the biggest thing I realized when I was just messing around with these joints. Instead of the dado blade, I just used a bottoming router bit in the table to clean out the rest. That part worked really well. It was the exacting miters that killed me.

Overall the messing around really helped me see things for myself how they should be. It's one thing to see them on TV or the internet, but a completely different thing to try them yourself.


I think I will try and make some jigs for the tablesaw to cut the miters exactly where I need them. I've been meaning to make an auxillary fence with stop block for my my miter gauge for a long time anyway.

[frank shic]

justin, i tried cutting beaded face frames with the chamfer bit grounded off at the bearing and i gotta tell you that building the jig takes a fair amount of time and testing plus using a miter saw or tablesaw to chop off that tiny piece on the rails seems like overkill. i'm just going to build a simple 45 degree hand saw jig in the future and trim them manually. i will add that routing the bead on does make it rather simple once the joints are cut since all you have to do afterwards is pocket screw them together so it's a tradeoff and the grain and color are sure to match as well as opposed to applied beading unless it's paint grade. another thing to consider is flushing the cabinet sides with the inner part of the face frame on base cabinets so that the drawer slides are easier to mount.

[Brian Peters]

IMO jack mitering is too time consuming and its a waste of time especially for large projects like a kitchen or library. I prefer to run it as a moulding and miter it and apply it to the face frame. It's much easier because you can cut them a hair big and snap them in and if you make a mistake it's not a face frame stile or rail its just a small piece of moulding. Glue and 23 ga pin nails works well.

[Frank Snyder]

Justin had PM'd me asking how I did this, so I though posting it here would be the easiest way to explain. This method is the easiest I've tried for performing jack miter cuts. You need a small miter gauge with a sacrificial fence.

I'm sick with the flu today, so please forgive me if what I type here doesn't make any sense. Hopefully the pictures (some out of focus) will make more sense.

Once you've milled all of your beads, use this stock to set your table saw blade height at 45 degrees. The cutting tip of the tooth of the blade should just graze the shoulder of the bead. This height is critical, so take your time setting it just right.

105888

Attach some scrap material to your miter gauge. Here I'm using Incra's v.27 gauge with some 3/4" plywood.

105889

Turn on the saw and pass the sacrificial fence through the blade. This will leave a kerf like this...

105890

Using a square and super sharp pencil (or a razor blade), transcribe a line from the top point of the kerf to the top edge of your sacrificial fence. This will be the inside reference line for all of your jack miter cuts.

105892

Mark your beaded frames where the jack miters occur using a square and then transcribe that line to the edge to you can line it up with your transcribed line on your sacrificial fence. Depending on the cut and the tilt of your saw, you may be to the left of the blade or to the right of the blade.

105894

cont'd...

[Frank Snyder]

To save time, if you have a batch of repeated identical cuts, fashion a stop on your sacrificial fence so you don't have to mark all of your work.

After making the jack miter cut, you need to remove the bead. Here I simply use my bandsaw the remove most of the bead, just leaving a thin shoulder to shave off using the table saw, followed by a sharp chisel. You don't have to do it this way, and if your bandsaw cuts straight, then just go right for the shoulder.

105897105898105901105902
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cont'd...

[Frank Snyder]

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If you have a captured jack miter cut (i.e; drawer rail), then I use a dado blade on the table saw with a miter gauge and sacrifical fence to remove this material. Make the two jack miter cuts as described above, then switch to a dado blade. Again, take your time setting the height of your blade (90 degrees this time, not 45 degrees) and use the sacrifical fence to establish the kerf (pass it through the dado blade). Transcribe your outside cut lines and you're good to go.

I hope I didn't miss anything here and let me know if you run into any problems.

[frank shic]

excellent description with the pics, frank! thanks!!! :D

[Josiah Bartlett]

I don't use neanderthal tools very much, but for beading and chamfering small projects I use hand planes. I have an wood body old beading plane I picked up for cheap and sharpened, and it is really easy to get a perfect bead with and relatively fast. For a 45 chamfer I just grab my trusty old bench plane and do it by eye.

Those old simple molding planes can be picked up for less than the cost of a good router bit, and they work surprisingly well. If I'm doing more than one door or frame then I set up the molding head in the saw or the router table. Its tricky to get a good consistent bead without using a very strong feather board setup and a fence, because any deflection in the board throws the bit off the track. The hand planes follow those gentle curves and things work out fine, and when you use a plane you don't get the little round defects from where you shifted your grip when you were using a router.

[Will Blick]

Frank S, nice pix, nice technique....

As other suggested, and I am curious also....

What if you treated the beaded insert as a thin molding, how could you tell the difference in the finished product? Or maybe you can't?

[Brian Peters]

Will, that's exactly what I do, apply it. Faster and better in the long run. You won't even notice the difference if you use good lumber.

[Joe Chritz]

On painted projects you really probably could never tell. On stain projects you can often see a gap or grain mismatch or pin nails. 95% of the people could never tell the difference.

6 of one and all that.

Joe

[Jeff Duncan]

Nice description, well done.

Justin, one thing I forgot to add is that once you get the hang of doing these joints, you can kick it up a notch and add mortise and tenon construction:D I did a kitchen using this construction a little over a year ago and it was a great project to push my skills a bit. It takes a bit more planning, but if done correctly makes an impressive joint. Not for the fainthearted who can't handle the jack mitering, but if your willing to go this far on this project, maybe on the next one!
good luck,
JeffD

[Frank Snyder]

Will - I don't think you'll notice an applied bead if the work is painted. If you wanted a compromise for something not painted, mill the mead, rip it off, then reapply it to the same piece you ripped it from and you should still have some semblance of grain continuity and color. I had to use this technique for arched beaded face frames.

Jeff - I actually do this with my beaded face frames using the Domino. I plunge the mortise before removing the bead (full 28mm depth for 40mm Dominoes on the beaded stile). See http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=89048

[Justin Leiwig]

Frank S, nice pix, nice technique....

As other suggested, and I am curious also....

What if you treated the beaded insert as a thin molding, how could you tell the difference in the finished product? Or maybe you can't?

In my opinion it's the cheap way out. I do woodworking as a hobby, not for money. I do things for the satisfaction in doing them, so the time involved to do it right is not the most important thing to me.

In my mind, If I was going to try to cheat it out and just apply the bead I might as well just buy RTA cabinets with beaded face frames from one of the plethora of cabinet suppliers and just install them. I'm doing this project for the learning experience, as well as the challenge of it. I know that there is no practical cost or time savings by doing it myself, but that is not what matters to me. A day spent in the shop, frustrating or not is better than no time in the shop at all.

If it was easy everyone would do it!

[Mike Goetzke]

Justin - have you also thought of mitered face frames?


Mike

[Justin Leiwig]

Justin - have you also thought of mitered face frames?


Mike

Yes...I plan on using this setup for some picture frames that will have a bead on the inside and outside with mitered corners.

[Justin Leiwig]

I just want to publically thank Frank for all his help. I know I've been a pain asking him so many questions through private messages. He has always been more than willing to help and is a stand up guy through and through.

Thanks Frank!

Justin