Making the Wall Clock – the Poor Man’s Beading Tool

To form the roundovers

With all of the joinery completed, I now focus on design concepts I want to soften the hard corners with a bullnose edge to the top and bottom pieces of the clock. I also want to introduce a method that slims down the appearance of the sides and rails because  think that they are too heavy looking and clunkish: By using the #4 Stanley plane, I can make a perfect roundover in a matter of minutes, far faster than using the router and much less clean up and safety concerns. By screwing a 1 1/4” #10 screw into a piece of pine, I can create a ‘poor-man’s’ beading tool.

To form the first roundover I plane the end grain areas first. I run the plane at about 45-degrees along the corner until I have a flat about 1/4-3/8″ wide. 

I then drop my angle to half that and take a couple of full-length swipes. Then, with each successive swipe rising from bottom to top I take a series of swipes, altering the angle with each stroke, until I reach the topmost surface.

 

 

 

I repeat on the opposite side to create a full roundover as shown.

 

I repeat this to the opposite end.

 

Now I connect the two ends by doing the same along the length.

 

 

 

 

 

Using sandpaer to refine the plane work, I sand until all flats become round using first the coarse 150-grit and then the 240-grit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To form the beads

I set the depth of the screw to 3/16” from the block I call the stock.

 

 

I run the stock of the beading tool against the outside flat face of the side pieces to form the bead line. You could also run it along the inside face or indeed both of the front corners on each side to thin the appearance even more. This is up to you.

 

 

 

I also run the bead along the top and bottom crossrails, to correspond with the bead on the sides. I like the traditional look of this. By starting at one end, I pull the beading tool toward me in short repeated strokes, working along from one end to the other. It takes less than two minutes to complete with the screw. I press until the shank of the screw rides the wood and this also serves as the depth stop, so that I don’t go unevenly.

Once I am down, I take the tenon saw and run that along the groove from one end to the other. this gives a neat and square look to the inside of the bead.

 

 

 

 

By folding coarse sandpaper, #150-grit I can reach into the inside corner of the bead and use the sandpaper to further round the bead. I follow this with finer #240-grit paper to finish.

With the #4 Stanley smoothing plane, I remove the outside corner in a few quick passes and follow a round to complete the shaping of the bead.

 

 

 

 

Sandpaper completes the finishing. With the bead formed, I use the tenon saw to clean out the inside corner of the bead, which is simply a couple of passes. I repeat all of the is the opposite side and then do the same to the top and bottom crossrails.

 

You can see the poor man’s beading tool cum marking gauge here. This one shows how that gauge can be used as a marking gauge for setting hinges. Here is another on refining the beading tool screw to form a deeper, more effective cutter.