Beading, how do you ...

Richard Line

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I've been looking at the Pine Cupboard in Ejner Handberg's 'Shop Drawings of Shaker Furniture & Woodenware'. I'm thinking of building this, or a variant. The construction of it seems quite straightforward. That is until you think of how to do the beading on the door panels.

The door panels are flat panels with a rabbeted edge to fit into the rails and stiles (which are square edged). On the panels, just inside of the rabbet there is some beading that is part of the panel, not attached separate trim pieces. The basic beading can be made using either a router with beading bid or a hand beading tool.

My question is how can the beading be formed at the corner of the panel. The ideal is to have the beading form a mitered corner, but how. If a router and beading bit is used, running it in both directions, the result is a 'button' that is separated from the intersecting runs of the beading. Same thing with a hand beading tool. The beading could be stopped short of the corner, but then how is the intersection formed.

I've seen this type of treatment accomplished using separate trim pieces, but I would like to make the beading part of the panel, if that is practical.

The only approach I've come up with is to form the beading with router or beading tool to the edge of the intersection. Carefully extend the bead to the intersection, to create the inner part of the beading. Then form the outer part of the beading at the intersection with a chisel, plane or knife.

Any answers, tips, suggestions.
 
If the beading is distinct from the remainder of the flat panel (the panel stays flat all the way to where the bead starts), then it can't be done without the use of chisels or gouges.

If the panel's run horizontally across a router bit in the vertical axis, the edge of the flat panel will be rounded over to match half the bead.

If the panel's run vertically across a router bit in the vertical axis, the inside intersection will need quite a lot of manual trimming - the intersection will sweep upwards one radius from the intersection. The outside, too, will need trimming... but that part is EASY.

Myself, I'd cockbead it. That's a lot easier to accomplish.
 
Tod, that is certainly a good way (although your example is well above my labor grade, impressive). What the book shows is the beading being part of the panel, as in the panel detail shown in the attached image.

I have thought about doing it with the bead on the outside, as you showed, but I've seen several references to the bead being on the inside and part of a single piece of wood. I'm trying to figure how that would be done.
 

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That's pretty much how I visualized it... difficult to get done with a router, impossible without a fair amount of chisel/gouge work.

Another good way to get it done is with a scratch stock... or two scratch stocks. One would cut the bulk of the bead, getting it all the way into the inside corner. The other - shaped to do a simple roundover with the same radius as the bead - would work the outsides of the corner, and would be used around all four sides before doing the inboard (no pun) half of the bead.
 
i agree on the scratch stock.. and keep a steady pressure or yu can go astray.. yu might be able to do most of it on the Router table if yu stopped it back from the corner and do your rabet last.. yu would need to run your beading bit high to allow for the rabet last.. then make a scatch stock to match your bead profile out of a used sawsall blade and a grinder.. and do your corners last..end grain frist clean up on the edge grain
 
Scratch Stock!

That is what I meant when I referred to a 'beading tool' in the original post. I couldn't think of the name and the Lee Valley catalog called them 'beading tool'.

Having 2 scratch stock profiles, as suggested, makes a lot of sense. The router could do the bulk of the edge forming, stopping back of the corners. Then do the outside (round over), followed by the inside part of the bead. That is a plan.

I had also thought about the need for floating the panel and allowing space for expansion / contraction. The panels would only be about 7 inches wide, so not a lot of allowance would be needed. Still, my thoughts were to have the bead's edge about 1/4 or so from the frame so any movement wouldn't be obvious.

At this point, I haven't decided how to do it: as described above using a scratch stock, forming the beading on separate pieces and attaching them to the edge of the rabbet, or putting the beading on the frame as Tod showed.

This is a spring or summer project, so plenty of time to decide and draw the plans. Now its time to think snow and skiing.

Thanks for all the help on this.

Dick
 
Interesting construction detail, beaded panel as opposed to cope and stick, mitered sticking or applied moldings. Don't remember seeing that before. I am going to see if I can find that detail in some old books that I have.
 
The way I do beads like that is to do nearly all of it with a router. Use a round over bit for the outside edge. Then I use a point cutting round over and an edge guide on the router for the inside edge. Run the router counter clockwise around the edge of the workpiece so that the spinning of the bit pulls the fence into the edge. If you go the other way, the router has a tendency to drift away from the workpiece and you will cut though your bead. DAMHIKT :rolleyes:

http://www.holbren.com/roundover_point-cutting/

If you're careful you can run it all the way into the corner then you have a very little cleanup to do with a bench chisel.

When you clean up with the chisel, you first chop a "crease" for the inside of the corner, then you pare away the round over working into the crease. Clean up the whittle marks with some sandpaper and you're done. It's okay to leave the crease, it catches a little finish and looks better than if you get rid of it.

As far as panel movement goes, I'd pin the panel top and bottom exactly in the middle. Then the edges can float relative to the middle so the gaps on both sides will be uniform. For a panel as narrow as you're looking at, any movement won't really be noticeable.

Edit: I looked at the pic again, and the method I use leaves a roundover on the panel next to the bead. I think it looks good, but if you're looking to be exactly like the picture, a scratch stock is probably your only option. Or if you can stand a wider groove on the inside of the bead, you could follow up the pointed roundover bit with a straight bit to give you the square corner inside the bead.
 
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