Beading Tool

[Tim Zipfel]

Is it me, or is this tool not right?

This is the second tool that I've received that has no tang. The first came in a full length sleeve, not a short one like this. The blurb on the Craft Supplies website for this tool gives a usable length of 5 inches. All of the handled beading tools shown have a tang mounted in the handle. The base of the tool is clearly a fractured break, not a clean cut. Mounting the tool in a handle is going to shorten the usable length a lot.

Any ideas?

Tim

[Bob Hallowell]

Thart can't be right I would send it back. Plus I think with some practice you can learn to turn beads without it.

Bob

[Mike Vickery]

Yeah that does not look right to me as well, send it back.

I have the sorby beading tool. I turn beads on spindle work by hand but use it to put beads on bowls.

[Brodie Brickey]

If you really have to have one, get a file and drill a half hole on the end in the middle. Taper the sides that lead up to the hole and you're in business.

[Ken M Nelsen]

Tim,

I have one of those - 1/16" bead that I only use to circle my maker's mark on the bottom of a piece and a small bead over a glue-line on two-piece hollow forms. All other beads I make with a detail gouge.

After watching Mike Mahoney use both ends of a Oneway (I think) double ended gouge without a handle, I decided not to handle mine. "Handling" it by hand for those two functions works great. Remember that the bevel goes up and if you start the bead with the bevel a bit below perpendicular to the surface of the work and as you reach the final depth, raise the tip until the bevel is perpendicular (level), you should get a nice bead.

The bevel also needs some dressing (reshaping) to refine the scraping edge before it will cut well.