>Something I've been meaning to try for a while, but haven't had an application. I'm building a small "face" mirror I'll call it for my wife's birthday. Its a small arch topped mirror that swivels on two supports on a base. I made it out of mahogany and the design is just what popped into my head and I had a little fun with it. Anyway, I felt like the supports needed some decoration and I love beads, so I initially thought I'd use my smallest beading bit. Well, the quirk that it leaves is way too wide. So, in about 30 minutes or so, I fashioned a scratch stock. I cut the handle out of a piece of poplar. Made the kerf with a dovetail saw. I had some small scrapers I got from Lee Valley that I had cut down to match some of my carving chisel shapes, so I used one end of one of those. I ground the profile with a Dremel and then honed both sides on water stones. And it worked pretty well. I practiced on some scraps to get the hang of it. Its an ugly tool, but it got the job done and is exactly what I wanted. I'll try and get some pics tonight. I found that Ihad to clear the shavings/dust after each pass cause they kept clogging up in front of the blade. Also, when scraping the end of a workpiece, I clamped another piece with it as an extension bed sort of thing, else the fence would wiggle near the end of the cut. One last note, I added a small cove on the ends and those were tricky to bead. I started them with the scraper mounted, then finished them free handed. Had to be careful, but it worked out pretty well.
>Sounds like fun Tony. I just made one myself to bead some trim pieces for a box. Yours sounds as rough as mine, but they work well. Lets see the mirror when its done.
>I think using scratch stock (or beaders) is pretty much a lost technique even though it is a real handy tool to have in your woodworking skill bag. Sounds like you broke the code!
>Forgot to type anything...the crotch panel behind it is the back. Our bathroom has huge mirrors (hate em!), so I thought you'd see the back all the time, so I covered it with a nice piece of crotch left from another project. Not happy with the scale of the hardware at all. Its the Lee Valley mirror set. Much too big. I thought about cobbling something up, but I was too lazy. It works fine, just too big I think. Oh well. The paintbrush (hard to tell from the fuzzy pic) that is lying under the mirror frame - my wife paints and this mirror is for face painting - I was just being funny and wanted to add something to it. The finials are shaped sort of like Christmas lights - I have a thing for the old fashioned lights. I had a string in my apt. window when we started dating (it was CHristmas time) and she bought me a painting of a fence in Key West with Christmas lights hanging on it (its a nice watercolor by Dana Brown of Huntsville, AL) for my shop - then I bought a couple of old sign reproductions that have Christmas lights on them - so there's the story! Oh, the old string of lights is now in my shop window - funny story, I had them strung on our gardenia during the real cold weather last year and the rabbits ate through the cord! UNfortuantely, they weren't plugged in at the time -dang rabbits eat all my plants. Anyway, sorry to babble. I bought a package of mirror tiles at Lowes for a few dollars and cut one down to fit. Not pretty, but the rough edges will be hidden.
>This is a corner detail of a picture frame that I made. I had carved the Egg and Dart, but I thought thatit needed some beading detail. I took an old spade bit and ground a bit of the profile on one side of it and then used it to make the beads on the frame. Not even a holder;-)
Actually, spade bits make pretty good scraping/beading tools.
I regularly use a scratch stock to flute the sticks and heads of period (baroque musical instrument bows I make. I've attached an image of typical fluting on a bow. For a sense of size, the bow's head in the top image is roughly 30mm long and the stick size across the octagon faces in the lower image is ~5/16" (~8.5mm) thick. I have several different radiused cutters I can use, depending on the region I'm fluting. The cutters are made from an old heavy-duty hacksaw blade (~1/8" thick steel) and do not flex at all like thinner steel might.
The bow shown in the two images is made of figured snakewood and, as you noted, the shavings do tend to collect in front of the blade. I use a small horse hair brush to remove these because they tend to get between the blade and wood and make the blade skip and cause divots. I carve the flutes in the curved portion of the head using small curved gouges; the scratch stock isn't accurate enough for this level of detail.
