beaded T&G

[Anonymous]

Hi, I want to replacate some old outbuilding doors which are made of toungue-and-groove planks, but with a "bead" at the T&G join.

Can anyone tell me how this is done? I have looked for router bits but there doesn't seem to be one for that.

 

[Anonymous]

I use second head beading planes. These are readily available from any good antique tool dealer, probably for less than the price of a new router cutter. They are much nicer to use than a router, and you dont risk getting your fingers chewed off.

 

[Anonymous]

There are beading cutters for routers, but they can be tricky to use on long planks - you need a hefty and stable router table and need to keep the board properly vertical while pushing it across the table to get a good bead. I have made a few beaded t&g doors (using B&Q floorboards!) but I didn't use a router - I got a local carpenter/woodworker to run the t&g boards through his spindle moulder with a suitable cutter mounted. Once set up it takes a matter of seconds for each board (check on an offcut to get the right effect). If you have any carpentry workshops around, ask them what they'd charge to do it for you.

 

[Anonymous]

I use an ancient little beading plane I found in a junk shop. Much nicer than a spindle molder and only co 50p.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info - T&G floorboards was exactly what I had in mind!

I didn't realise special beading planes are/were available - I think I will try that route first, if I can find one!

 

[Anonymous]

If you can get one cheaply try it - but it will probably be hard work. You may have to set up some way of guiding it on the (shallow) edge and you might have to do a little at a time (i.e. working down to the correct bead profile a bit at a time) rather than in one pass, so you could have a long job with the number and length of boards you will have to do. The other problem will be keeping the blade sharp - a curved profile blade is almost impossible to resharpen for an amateur. Good luck with it, tell us if you managed.

 

[Anonymous]

You're not putting beading on floorboards are you? And Geoff's right about the hard work. A beading plane is just for the occasional bit of decoration. I wouldn't want to do more than a few feet at a time. If you've got masses to do take it to someone with a spindle moulder.

 

[Anonymous]

Regular beading planes have an inbuilt fence which is deep enough to engage on the shoulder of a T&G board but shallow enough not to foul the tongue (see pic on link).

Sharpening blades is not that difficult. All you need is a regular flat oilstone and an oilstone slip of approximately the right curvature.

Narrow beads on softwood with a well sharpened and set plan take virtually no effort. Personally I find working them much less strssful overall than operating dangerous machinery.

If you are restoring or trying to match old work, planes are much to be prefered. Modern beading cutters often have the wrong profile (the quirks are not vertical on the side opposite the bead as they should be - I imagine this is to make the cutter stronger as less liable to break under load). Planes, being influenced somewhat by the grain alsoleave a more sublte, less mechanical finish.


http://www.hansbrunnertools.gil.com.au/imagesUsersStanley/4Beads.jpg

 

[Anonymous]

Nice picture. Just like what I use.

 

[Anonymous]

By the way, when you make up the doors, don't glue the tongue and groove joints - cramp the boards and use the ledges to hold things together. Gluing the joints may cause splitting and warping as the boards try to move with atmospheric changes. Leaving them unglued allows some natural movement. I've done around six doors and none has warped or split. Try and get the straightest and driest boards (leave them in a warmish dry room for a few weeks) so you don't get too much shrinkage. When making up I used 4 or 5 no 10 screws per board on each ledge screwed from the ledge side into the planks with the screws heavily countersunk by using a larger drill bit (matching no 10 diameter) as the countersink and using a plug cutter to cut plugs from offcuts to fill the screw holes. I painted my doors and the results are very good - they look realistically old especially with some nice old Victorian 'penny end' strap hinges that I managed to rescue.

 

[Anonymous]

An alternative to using screws is to nail from the T&G side into the ledges, punching them in and filling the nail holes with linseed oil putty before painting. It is likely that they were originally made this way. I certainly agree about not using glue.

 

[Anonymous]

And if the nails are much too long, they go straight through. You then hammer the tip over and then hammer all the protruding part over and bash it sideways into the back of the ledge. The nail can then never work loose, cannot be reused and is as dead as a doornail.

"For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenail." anon 1350