Not to long ago, I watched someone use a lathe. Yes, you can indeed make wooden beads with lathes. But if you aren't into wood working and don't own a lathe, there is another alternative. Your handy dandy Dremel drill.
Uncle G's video tutorial shows some pretty clever tricks making and marking handmade wooden beads.
He actually starts from an ash twig for his demo. He strips the bark off when the wood is still green and then lets it dry. You do need a saw to cut up sections. Otherwise, the drill is used to bore holes and to prepare a homemade mandrel. His really brilliant tip is to use a cut up Allen key to stuff into the hole. As the hole is round and the key is not, this makeshift mandrel will hold the wooden section while turning it into a bead.
He then shapes the bead with sandpaper and scores lines on a blade. Those dark areas were simply created by spinning the bead on its mandrel on paper etc. This effectively burns the wood. I also loved how he added wax to the beads the easy way!
If you do have a lathe, then
David Smith's tutorial for turning a wooden bead is worth a peek. His design is for a longer bead. I like what he used to score the 3 lines in the middle of the bead. He said
on his post,
"You can probably buy plain matte oval or wooden beads at a craft store for around 5 cents each, so the first design consideration is to make them different than that so they're worth the trouble." Good point.
H/T Aims for the Dremel find!
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