Cheap perfect barrel bead from rough

By istván.

2023. április 1.

If you ever find yourself having to turn a solid mineral nugget into a bead, I'll give you the hobo cutter secret to do it with $1 of disposable parts beyond your normal tools.

Step 1

Spend 60 minutes drilling a hole through the nugget using a ball bur and a bucket of water. If you're working a relatively soft material it may go quicker. Every time I've been asked to do this it was with a very large chunk of nephrite or beryl.

Step 2

Get the longest 2mm bolt from the hardware store that you can find and six nuts.

Thread three nuts with a generous amount of Loc-Tite. Mix up a batch of steel-bearing epoxy and put it over the adjacent threads. Slide on the drilled nugget. Add the next three nuts with more Loc-Tite. Snip both ends of the bolt.

Step 3

When everything is set and hardened, load one set of nuts into the chuck and gently turn the opposing ones against a metal file until they form a cone.

Insert it into the centering bearing. Push everything together as tight as possible.

Step 4

Turn the nugget using water and high-abrasive diamond files until you get your even barrel shape.

Smooth with 220, 400, and 1000 silicon-carbide sandpaper. By this point your bead will be so hot the Loc-Tite will have disintegrated.

Remove the nuts on the chucked end with pliers and blowtorch the screw to burn the epoxy.

Step 5

Use your normal lapidary wheels to do 1,200 and 3,000 with diamond abrasive in soft resin. Then move on to the appropriaste polish.

Congratulations! You just made a perfect single bead without a bead machine.

If you want to show off more artistry, you can use the lathe to turn some simple textures into the bead before final polish. Otherwise, you can sit down and carve your bead.