How to add a bead to a piece of molding


Recommended Posts

I am making a shaker-style peg-board. It is basically just a 10 ft. length of 3/4" pine with a wooden peg every 10 in. or so. The Shaker's used to hang everything up on pegs. 

The Shakers would add a small bead along the top and bottom of these boards, and I'd like to as well. They did it with a hand plane, I'm sure. I do not own a hand plane that can be used to make a bead like that. I'd also like to avoid buying an expensive bead molding cutter for my table saw if I can avoid it. I may be screwed, and just have to buy one of the other, but I thought I'd ask you guys first. I know I could set up a router table to add a tiny roundover along each side down the length of the board. That would start the "bead." but I cannot think of a way to create the second roundover to complete the beads. 

What do you guys think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A piece of scrap with a bandsaw kerf in it, two pan head woods screws and a piece of worn out Sawzall blade.  File profile into blade with a rat tail file, polish surfaces and away you go.

scratch-stock-001.jpg

I practiced on a prototype made of pallet-wood.

22-GH Cab trim detail.jpg

I also used in on the cherry ship lap panels that made the back of the "keeper" verrsion.

GH Wall Cabinet- 016.jpg

 

GH Wall Cabinet- 017.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, BeautysBeast said:

Forgive my ignorance, but is scratch stock mean you are more or less just scratching the groove/bead in?

yes that's essentially it. A scratch-stock is just a scraper that is shaped to the profile you want, held in a block of wood to act as a fence ... then you scrape it along the edge to scratch out the profile. Works really well along the grain, but sometimes can tear the wood fibres a bit across grain - as always sharpness helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did it!!! The combined cost of my DIY beading plane = .32 cents!!!

I watched a video on YouTube by Peter Sellers; the English gent who talks slowly and makes you want to throw away all your power tools. He made a "poor man's beading tool."  It is a 2" x 2" square piece of a 2"x4" that fits perfectly in the palm of your hand (you can round the thing over if you want to.).

  • You take a flat #12 or #14 wood screw with the beveling under the screw head.
  • Pre-drill and countersink a hole in the center of the chunk of wood, Screw the screw all the way in until it rests just a micron short of being flush with the wood face.
  • Then you take a metal file, and file the screw head dead flat with the wood. This sharpens the edges of the screw. 
  • Then you back it out 2-3 turns to the desired bead radius, and you've made a tiny hand plane that you can run along the board like a marking gauge going progressively deeper until you have the bead channel carved. 
  • Then you just take a tiny hand plane or even some 120 sandpaper, and round over the edge to create the other side of the bead. 

Works perfectly! Takes a good while to do, but it isn't bad work. I did an 8 ft. pine board sitting in a chair on my porch last night. Took about an hour. 

On 6/19/2016 at 2:46 PM, JohnDi said:

check out Paul Sellers videos, he shows how to make a simple scratch stock.

I just saw this post JohnDi... Ha!!! Thanks Buddy! I appreciate you posting. Peter Seller's video did the trick!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.