Summary

A simple tool for stringing beads quickly and with ease. It can save you a lot of time if you make your own jewelry and clothes with beads.

This thing is similar to http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:341.

Instructions

A bead spinner is a tool for stringing beads. It has a rotating bowl that is filled with beads.

Edit the SCAD files to suit your needs, compile and build with your 3D printer. See the drawings if you want to know the meaning of the parameters.

The radius of the shaft of the base and the radius of the spindle of the bowl minus the wall thickness should be about the same, but the latter should be slightly larger to let the bowl spin freely. You can try to make them the same dimension and sand the shaft if needed. You can add some grease to reduce friction, but the bead spinner works almost as well without it.

To use the bead spinner, fill the bowl with beads and rotate the spindle with one hand while holding a needle with string or a piece of wire on the other hand. The trick is to get the beads going towards the tip of the needle or piece of wire; they will happily jump and string themselves in a matter of seconds.

The base may slip on the table while you spin the bowl. Some anti-slip tape can be a good help, but the most effective solution is to put some adhesive tape (either two-sided or one-sided but folded to work as two-sided) on the bottom of the base and stick it to the table.

Bead spinner