A
Mini Review of the Veritas Beader
I enjoy making beads by hand. My preference has been either to use a scratch stock or a Stanley #66 with a custom long fence and LN blades.
Stanley #66 and custom
fence
I
have had the Veritas beader from the outset of production and have
used it on a number of occasions. I made a few comments
here-and-there over the past year or so, and have pieced these
together into a mini demonstration-review. Note that the emphasis
here is on using the tool rather than detailing its features.
The
context was a panel I made for a cabinet in which the inner edge was
a bead made using the LV beader ...
The
bead was made on Jarrah which had first been grooved. Note the
forward-facing fence. Since the beader is pushed,
not pulled, this
provides a great deal of reference in this direction, but little at
the end of the run. The Veritas is a push
tool, while the #66 is a
pull
tool.
I
liked the handles, which are adjustable and reversible. The beader is
comfortable to hold. The blades are easiest to install when set
against the fence, and my biggest niggle was that it was not possible
to fine tune the distance to the fence as the latter was fixed
(unlike the #66, which slides side-to-side).
My fence, used
only for a straight side, was slightly (a couple of degrees)
out-of-square.
It
had the effect of creating a tad of tearout at the start of the bead
– just a tad, and only at the start …
In
case you are wondering about your fence being the same, I discussed
this with the designer, Brian Ebbinghaus, at Lee Valley. “As
designed, the fence should be able to swing above and below a perfect
90° orientation by 2° to 3°. We could have designed a connection
that ensured perfect perpendicularity, but we decided against doing
so as it would have added extra machining costs that we could not
justify. In our testing of this design, the prototypes that lead to
it and the historical models upon which we drew inspiration; we
noticed that small variations in the perpendicularity of the fence
had no noticeable effect upon the results. The nature of the wood
grain being scraped introduced much greater variability. Also, the
tools from our collection as well as hand-made scratchstocks tended
to have much greater angular deviations, but shorter fences made this
less noticeable.
And
Brian is quite correct. In spite of the fence being off-square, the
results I got were very satisfactory, very good …
A
cross-section shot of the bead (taken when paring the
mitre)..
Overall,
my impression is that the Veritas Beader works rather well.
The
Veritas blades are the same as the ones that come with their wooden
beader, and these are smaller and thinner than the LN blades (and
about the same thickness as the Stanley blades). They could be used
at a pinch in the #66 (I have done so) but are not as great in that
job as the #66 blades. On the other hand, the LN blades could be used
in this Veritas very happily, should you want to do so. Generally I
make my own blades out of 3/4" bandsaw blade.
The Veritas
arris is much finer than those on the LN blades and, as a result,
cuts a finer, cleaner bead line. I used both on this project, and
redid the bead from the LN blade with the Veritas.
The fence
on the Veritas is designed in the same style as a scratch stock. It
is multi-adjustable for a straight, curved or bullnose configuration.
However, it starts in line with the blade and, consequently, has
limited/minimal registration when starting a cut when the fence faces
forward. I would have liked a fence with rear extension for the extra
registration, especially when reaching the end of a board. Having
said this, I dislike the small straight fence on the #66 as well -
hence this modification:
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...%20Beader.html.
For the record, when asked which I prefer, I voted above for
the #66 because, in a face off between these two beaders, the
adjustable fence of the #66 just tips the balance. Either one would
be satisfactory. Still my personal favourite remains a scratch stock
of the following design.
Regards
from Perth
Derek
December 2008