Wooden Beads....

[Jonathon Spafford]

Quick question.... what is the simplest method for drilling and turning wooden beads for mass production purposes?

[Paul Engle]

Wal Mart,1/4 x 1/4 in x 1/16 in hole , various asian woods 40 to a pack 2.49$ :eek: Just kidding, I was going to untill I discovered how much "not" fun they were to drill, shape, sand,finish, part off....good luck tho.:D

[Mike Vickery]

I have never done it but I would make a jig similiar to one I saw for making chinese balls in a book. There is a hss cutter held at the center line that is attached to the ways by a pivot pin, as long as the pivot pin is centered the bead should be good. the distance between the tip of the cutter and the pivot pin would end up being 1/2 of the diameter of the bead. Just turn a dowel to the proper diameter then use the jig to make it a bead, drill on the lathe and part off by hand.

I am not sure if this makes sense or not, but that is what I would try first.

[Mike Vickery]

I figured I did a terrible job explaining this so I did a quick google
http://www.chesapeakewoodturners.com/newsletter/fcmar2005.pdf
I did not read the article but the first picture is the jig I was talking about.

[Rich Souchek]

Jonathon,
I tried to cut some 1/2" and 3/8" dia. while back with both a skew and detail guoge. They were lumpy and not pretty.
After reflection, decided next attempt would be with a specail scraper. Have read about people making a tool out of round pipe, grinding a bevel on it, and then using the roung pipe as a scaper to make near perfect little round balls.
Figured if the balls were that good, then I could make a little jig at the drill press to lock them into place whil the hole is being drilled.
Hope this makes sense to you, it should work good (again depending on the wood selection.)
Rich S.

[John Taylor]

HI

I have just finished making some for a lady who makes her own jewellery

68050

They are 5/8" in size with a 1/8" hole through the centre for stringing.

I cut the square stock just over size then drilled the hole through the centre on a pillar drill.

Mounted on the lathe using a friction drive.

68053

The rough them to shape and finished them to round, or nearlly, with a beading tool.

68049

Once you have the process worked out they only take a couple of minutes each.

hope this helps
john

[Marvin Hasenak]

Hut Products sells a mandrel that mounts in a Jacobs chuck for making beads and light pull chains, http://www.hutproducts.com/prodinfo.asp?number=1102 I must say is works pretty good and is a fun.

[Dennis Daudelin]

Hi All,

With tiny beads, I like turning them by hand. They can be off a little (meaning not 100% round) without being overly obvious. But as they get bigger, they are harder to make round. It can be done but takes a lot of time and I don't find it fun.

Recently, I got one of the sphere turning jigs from Fred Lindsay. I've been using it with good success. He uses the great Mike Hunter cutters which really do a nice job.

http://www.sphereturning.com/assets/homepage-image.jpg

You can learn more at Fred's website: http://www.sphereturning.com/

Sorry about the title but like a song that you can't get out of your head, I keep hearing "Soylent Green is people"... yes, I know, time to see the doctor...

P.S. Anyone know why I couldn't input using Firefox? Had to open up the unused IE browser...

Dennis