Thread: Edward Preston beading spokeshave - how easy to use?

These were mainly used on gently curved work where a normal wooden beader simply can’t go. I have a few; the key is to get the blade profile to match the sole as perfect as possible and to use the lightest cut you can manage.

These compliment the matching wooden beaders but don’t really work that well as a substitute for them. 9/16” is one of the bigger shaves and will give you a bit of a workout.

Have just had a better look at the photo and this is one to pass over; the front has been broken off which renders it pretty useless. The only reason to buy this would be for the blades.

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

These were mainly used on gently curved work where a normal wooden beader simply can’t go. ....

Chief, the equivalent & forerunner of the metal beaders was not a beading plane but the scratch-stock, which most certainly can handle curves - with ease. I can't say for sure 'cos I've not used a metal-bodied beader, but I've sure used scratch-stocks a lot for many years. They have a number of advantages, a) near-zero cost, all you need is a scrap of wood, a couple of 5mm bolts and a bit of old saw plate or similar:

1 Scratch stocks.jpg

b) they can be made to suit a particular job at the drop of hat, with any sort of profile (within reason) you can file into the blade.

A scratch stock can easily follow curves in any direction, curves like the legs on the left may even be a bit easier to follow with a scratch stock than with the metal beader as there is no sole at all to 'bottom out' in a tight-ish curve:

2a beaded legs.jpg Chair kangaroo rail red.jpg

You can scrape complex mouldings with one blade,though it is generally easier to make such profiles in stages:

4 fence.jpg

The learning-curve is short & shallow, it amazed me how quickly I could bead a leg or a door-lip etc. with such a simple tool. There are a couple of points to watch, for starters don't try to scrape soft & 'furry' woods, and work the ends carefully, it is quite difficult to start & end the bead (I suspect the same applies to the metal tool). But starting & exiting a bead in the middle of an edge is no problem at all:

Chair Gilly2 back.jpg

As you might have gathered, I am a huge fan of the scratch-stock! I have considered getting a beading tool from time to time & I wouldn't reject one if it fell into my lap (gently!) but my dozens of home-made scratch stocks have always got the job done for me.....


Cheers,

Originally Posted by paul.cleary

The NZ ebay has a "9/16 Edward Preston beading shave" for sale (see attached photo).
I am curious to know if this type of spokeshave was easy to use for making mouldings, or whether it was a difficult to acquire skill.
Thanks

It does look like that has a missing piece to the front casting as Chief Tiff said. Its broken .
And as for its use, looking at its sole it wouldn't be going to far around curves. Its a straight line thing and acts as a spoke shave would with cutting the wood. Pretty easy to use though like a spoke shave is.
If you want to be beading and go traditional, not a router and bead cutter, the vintage wood side bead planes are very good and easy to use for straight lines .
IMG_9958.JPG This is a set but one off side beads are easy to collect and the small 1/8" up to 1/2 " sizes are used most on furniture and easiest to use.


If you want to be doing curved edges then the Scratch Stock as Ian put up is very good . Scratching a mould is harder work than cutting a mould . It raises a good sweat with the wider deeper ones. Just starting lightly and creating a straight track to follow with more effort later is the way.

I did these moulded pieces with a scratch stock . The red arrow is scratch stock mouldings on the first Oak piece and side bead on the lighter fruit wood cherry piece. The Yellow arrow on the moulding was roughed out with a router and finish shaped with round and hollow moulding planes.

Untitledxxxxoab.jpg Untitledxxxxiab.jpg

How are the floral panels done, Rob? Are the vines & flowers applied, or have they been carved & the ground lowered? It looks like the latter from the pic. Lotta work!

Ian

Originally Posted by IanW

How are the floral panels done, Rob? Are the vines & flowers applied, or have they been carved & the ground lowered? It looks like the latter from the pic. Lotta work!

Ian

Yes the latter Ian . Relief carved from solid . It was some work. I think the drawer front carving took about two days at most. The lower front rail was interesting. Leaving enough for the bead then the face behind that and going back from that to mark out tenons. The drawers and lower front rail waste was routed off then finished with chisel and scraper. Its a french Provincial style thing I designed by seeing another one which I thought was not as nice as this. I got a better leg idea from one book . Floral design from another French book. Polished and aged it right up . Put it in the window and it sold within two weeks honestly as a Melbourne made reproduction.

Chief Tiff,
thanks for pointing out that the front of the spokeshave has been broken off as I was tempted to buy it.
I searched the Internet and found an image of one of these spokeshaves which is intact - see the image labeled 132 in the attached photo.
The front looks to be quite fragile.
Paul

Originally Posted by auscab

looking at its sole it wouldn't be going to far around curves. Its a straight line thing

Depends which way you are looking at the sole Rob!

FC96187E-8207-4A7F-AC5F-46D8E22FDE5C.jpg
All of my Preston shaves have rounded soles; the pictured one is a 7/16” beader. This curvature lends itself to working on concave curves such as on legs rather than curved edges of panels. The central “fence” and quirk do taper away behind the cutter which would allow the tool to be used on gentle curves; but these would have to be very, very gentle curves….. I also have a couple of sash shaves; in Hans Brunner’s booklet on Mathieson planes he briefly discusses shaves and states they were used for curved work and it is easier to imagine this application where the shave is worked on the edge of a board rather than on the face.

Thanks for the picture of the cabinet; it’s beautiful! I can’t carve to save my life so when I see something like those panels I’m instantly and hugely impressed.

Edit: just realised Ian conveniently supplied a picture of beaded legs which a beading shave could have been used on…

0D1E457B-9CDC-4335-A111-FC0981368008.jpg

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

Depends which way you are looking at the sole Rob!

They do have a bit of a curve . I couldn't see that in any pictures I looked up. I wonder if they were a coachmakers tool ?
Did I read that somewhere a long time ago? Not sure .

Originally Posted by auscab

...... I wonder if they were a coachmakers tool ?
Did I read that somewhere a long time ago? Not sure .

I think they were possibly more used by coachmakers, Rob, I seem to remember reading the same somewhere too, but it might be just auto-suggestion now you mention it.

Chief, the tripod table-legs aren't the best example of what a scratchstock can cope with - those legs could have been done with a quirked-bead router bit by running the router along the outside edges (in fact I did make the first ones in that style with a router). The chair rail is another matter because it curves in two dimensions:

Chair Gilly2 back.jpg

I don't think there's any practical way you could do that with a router, & if there is, I'd have an entire set of chairs done before you could make the necessary jig. The scratch stock is such a versatile thing, I have often cobbled one up for a specific job, but have kept several of different sizes and different widths of the stock that I re-fit with different blades as required. Rounding the 'fence' part allows then to follow 'horizontal' curves more easily but makes them a bit more awkward for straight runs.

If you look around the inter-web, you'll find many different versions of scratch stocks. If you just want to try the technique, the old "screw in a piece of scrap" takes about a minute to make and works amazingly well. I made this with a piece out of the scrap box just to demonstrate it to someone. The profile has been filed very roughly but it made a quite presentable bead:

Screw scratch2.jpg

I used a similar tool to put the tiny beads on the glazed doors of this small bookcase:

Bkcse S_oak red.jpg [Edit: hmmm, the beads are too small to see in this pic & I don't have any close-ups, so you'll just have to take my word that they're there... ]

For straight edges like door styles, I made a tool after one I saw Garret Hack had made. This is probably as fancy as I'd ever get. I made it a bit too small for full comfort, but it works fine & since I rarely need to bead more than one or two small doors at any one time it's ok. I cut the bead on the bit of scrap it's sitting on in about 30 seconds just to show what the results can look like:

Straight beader.jpg

I would advise, on the basis of experience, not to go too fancy with scratch stocks, keep 'em simple & they'll do the job just as well as anything with brass knobs on it does...
Cheers,
ian