Tools for handling beads?
The recent threads about home made tying tools get me thinking about tools for bead handling. In particular, the process where you try pick up a bead and threaded it onto the hook (but end up dropping the bead, having it bounce off the desk, and get lost somewhere on the floor). I know there's a commercial tool for this, but I'm wondering if anyone has come up with a creative, simple home made solution. I'd love to hear some great ideas for this.
My wife works with beads to make jewelry and to pick them up, she uses a tool that looks like a long pin on a handle and picks the beads up by the holes.
I know they have them.I am going to take a pair of forceps and grind or drill the tips.
Tweezer or hemostats. I have had the "good" luck to visit the emergency room a couple of times in the last several years. After closing the opening I had made or removing the hook I had inserted they would bundle up the little surgical kit they had opened. I asked if they were going to trash them, they were, so I ask for them. Not exactly homemade but paid for indirectly.
Want to hear God laugh? Tell him Your plans!!!
All I do is wet the tip of the first finger of my left hand and press down on the bead firmly. That keeps the bead in place on the finger tip. Then I thread the hook through the bead. Works quite nicely virtually every time.
The downside is the occasional ***** in the tip of the finger from the hook point.
John
The fish are always right.
I use the same technique as John most of the time. However, I do have a homemade "tool" on my tying desk that works wonderfully (if I'm home and tying at my desk!). It's a popsicle stick, with a small piece of the loop faced Velcro glued on it. Pushed down on the beads it will pick up one or more of the beads for easy "hooking". Fingers are probably handier, but I tend to bleed quite easily () so the stick is there as needed. PS ... it also works well for "brushing out" dubbing on a fly body!
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Don't you just love the English language, and the fact that a ***** in the finger gets bleepedOriginally Posted by JohnScott
"Trust, but verify" - Russian Proverb, as used by Ronald Reagan
I have a Bead Nabber I got from the Bookmailer.
"You must not be too greedy in catching your said game (fish), as in taking too much at one time...That could easily be the occasion of destroying your own sport and other men's also." Juliana Berners (1450)
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