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.
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
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 (:roll:) so the stick is there as needed. PS … it also works well for “brushing out” dubbing on a fly body!
I bought the bead tweezers and love them.
Easier than with clumbsy fingers.
Rick
Similar to Ms. Betty’s velcro tipped popscicle stick…
A popsicle stick with a small piece of heavy duty double stick tape on end. (The thicker, cloth based type, not the plastic type.) The double stick tape will pick up a few beads at a time. At least one bead will have the hole oriented the correct way for easy “hooking”. The tape stays plenty sticky enough to last a long time. Eventually, just put on a new piece of tape.
I have bead tweezers that I like to use for metal beads. I have found that these tweezers are pretty strong and will often crush glass beads. I had not found a good solution for glass beads before, but Betty’s vecro idea sounds like a good one that I will have to try.
Ted
I use tweezers with a piece of scud back glued to the inside of each jaw.
I use a pair of reverse tweezers-the kind you squeeze to open and then release to close. The trick for bead holding is to prop the tweezers open and dip the tips in Dave’s Fleximent and let it dry. Then put another coat on and let it dry.
The dried Fleximent provides a slight cushion effect so that the bead will stay in place when you pick it up. Works like a charm.
Dave
I still use my fingers after all these years. Got enough useless crap in the tying kit without a special tool to pick up beads. That being said, I have used the tip on a Matarelli whip finisher to pick a single bead out of a random collection thereof.
Don’t you just love the English language, and the fact that a ***** in the finger gets bleeped
I keep a blob of the sticky putty used to mount posters on my tying table. Similar to ‘florists putty’ it is kind of like a post-it note made of clay. I knead this into a point and use it to pick up beads. I also stick a pea sized ball of it under my tying cement, no more spills!
I have used my Matarelli whip finisher to twist dubbing loops, we keep going and this may prove to be the Leatherman of fly tying tools.
I have some brass or at least brass plated beads which I can pick up with a magnet.
I thought it was tungsten that would pick up with a magnet? That’s how I’ve been picking them out - have I got them backwards?
They could contain nickle. That would do the same.
Cheers,
A.
Iron, nickel, and cobalt are the elements most people think of when they think of magnetism. It’s not quite that simple, but…
I have a Bead Nabber I got from the Bookmailer.
x2; a good set of digits has always served me well
Regards,
Scott