New Beader(s) With Guide

[Marshal Will]

A while ago I made a beader with an edge guide from a stitch groover. It worked OK but not great. The guide adjustment needed a pair of pliers to tighten and loosten. The tip I made didn’t do a very good groove.


I have a couple projects coming up that need a good one. A push beader works beautifully but they work pushing them away from you.


I wanted one that worked well pulling it toward me. It looked like it would be easier to make a whole new tool than to modify any existing one. As a proof of concept, I bought a beader online for $10. It looked like a stinko design but it had the potential to be modified for my purposes. After a few days it arrived and yes, it truly was stinko. I feel sorry for new leather workers that get scammed into wasting their money on one of these things.


Since a push beader works well, I figured that one with the tip made at a 45 degree angle to a push beader would be good. After grinding, filing and polishing, the newly shaped tip worked as hoped.


For a holder, I took the barrel off a swivel knife that was a junker that felt like it was full of gravel. I unscrewed the finger cradle and jammed a bolt into the handle for the stinko beader, retaining the thumb jam nut. Then I reshaped the handle and screwed it into the swivel knife barrel. A hole drilled through the barrel worked for a guide and the handle bolt tightens against that to lock it into position. A flat filed on it made it so it wouldn’t turn. The thumb jam nut keeps the handle tight on the guide.


I modified the tip from the beader so it would fit into the barrel. I did have to make the handle considerably smaller but otherwise it was good.


The guide had to be inline with the tip, too. All went together fine and worked right.


A quick test showed the design is a good one. It was easy to do parallel beads. A twist of the handle loosens the guide and another quick twist secures it. The lock thumb nut from the swivel knife helps to keep the handle from coming loose in use.


I'm pleased with this design. It works really well and I can make another tip when I want one a different size.

[Hawg]

Nothing like good ol American ingenuity.

[Captainkirk]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Or so I'm told!
Nice work, Marshal!!!!

[Marshal Will]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Or so I'm told!
Nice work, Marshal!!!!

Nothing like good ol American ingenuity.

Thanks, it certainly will do for my needs. It really wasn't necessary to buy that ten dollar special to modify but it worked out good. The the wood in it actually turned out to be that orange color. I thought they had dyed it but that isn't the case.

[Marshal Will]

OK, the mad tool maker is back at work again. Although the beader I just made works great and I intend to keep it for single beads, I couldn't leave well enough alone and got to thinking about multiple beads of different sizes. Rather than make a different tip for each size I may need, I thought that maybe I could make one tip that would work for every size I ever wanted.

Back to the POS stitch groover that didn't work. In addition to not working for beans, the damn thing would turn in the handle when I tried to tighten or loosten the guide lock. The first thing I did was to unscrew the whole end and then re-install it with Gorilla Glue so it wouldn't turn in the handle. I also beveled the end of the holder so I could work at a low angle without marking the leather. After that, I made a tip to go into it and filed it to make a rounded double beveled groove. Then I made a new guide bar from 1/8" S/S welding fill rod for it that is small enough to get into a tight radius and still work. The result is better than I had hoped. So much so that when testing it, I stopped doing anything to the tip for fear of taking too much off somewhere and loosing what I have. So the back of it is grinder rough and will stay that way.

My test piece had two beads, beveled with a lined beveler on the outside. I experimented with making an edge bead and although it was somewhat successful, it didn't round off the outside edge so I went over it with my #5 edge beader to clean it up. Here's the result:



And what the tip looks like:





I intend to stop making these things and get to enjoying them, now.

[Miguel Loco]

Nice work! I really enjoy these posts my friend! I hope you keep tinkering.....and keep sharing what you're doing.

[Marshal Will]

Thanks, Mick. I'll keep sharing. I'm a tool maker at heart, anyway.

BTW, the tip is made from a 3/16 SS bolt with the head cut off and the thread end filed down so it would fit into the holder.

[ShotgunDave]

You always give me "tool envy" Marshal. 

Great job as always!

[Marshal Will]

Thanks, Dave. It's interesting how much one can get done with hammer and file technology. Now I'll have to break it in on another holster or something.

[Miguel Loco]

Thanks, Mick. I'll keep sharing. I'm a tool maker at heart, anyway.

BTW, the tip is made from a 3/16 SS bolt with the head cut off and the thread end filed down so it would fit into the holder.

Thanks for that! It woud surely do the job....

[Marshal Will]

Thanks, Mick. I'll keep sharing. I'm a tool maker at heart, anyway.

BTW, the tip is made from a 3/16 SS bolt with the head cut off and the thread end filed down so it would fit into the holder.

Thanks for that! It would surely do the job....

Have at it my friend. It doesn't take all that long to make and it's a one time job. It helps to polish the tip when it's shaped.

To file down the thread end, I chuck it up in a drill and secure that in the vice.

It's easy to mess up that small tip with a vice so to shape it, I like to hold it in a 1/4" chuck I have with a 3/8-24 bolt set in it. I clamp that with the vice. Sometimes I hold my Swiss files with another chuck but some sets, X-Acto brand ones and maybe others, actually have a handle. Over the years, I've tossed a few drills that have burned out a bearing but I always take the chuck off before doing so. They come in handy.

[Navy Six]

Never thought about saving the chuck. I have one electric drill that is probably on its last legs so thanks for the tip.

[Marshal Will]

Glad to give you the heads-up.

In the years since I figured that out, I've saved one 1/2", one 3/8" and two 1/4" chucks. The 1/4" ones are the most useful for the things I do. Sometimes you can find a beat up old drill in a yard sale. $2 got me a 1/2" Jacobs chuck that way.

Have you ever tried to put a 1/64" drill bit in a half inch chuck? Ain't gonna happen. That one I have with the bolt in it is a good adapter for that.

[Marshal Will]

Update: A forum member on a different forum asked if the tip cuts or just makes an impression in the leather. I told him the tip works kind of between a creaser and a swivel knife. That reply got me to thinking it over. I tried following the line with a swivel knife after it was made and it improved the definition of the cut/impression. I just stoned the edge sharper and it works better. I'll work it down a little more so it cuts like a swivel knife. The stone I used was a 1/4" diameter gunsmithing stone so it keeps the rounded bevel shape to the tip. If you didn't have a round stone, I suppose it would work fine if it was a straight bevel but then you'd have to round the cut with a modeling spoon.

[Marshal Will]

I got to use the single bead cutter yesterday.



It works really well. It cuts deep enough to make a definite line but not quite as deep as a swivel knife would do. The result is it makes a great groove to bevel/stamp against. It cuts down through the top grain but not into the fiber layer. Here I used it on a hammer carrier (a gift for a kid in Finland). The carrier is no big deal but the way the bead cutter outlined the basket weave fill is really nice. I'm pleased and will use this a lot more for this type of thing.