I think what may be happening when makeing the bead with the skew is that
you are looseing the bevel. Not that I am an expert, but I have been
watching Alan Lacers "The skew chisle -- the dark side and the sweet side"
he recommends useing a dead center to drive your spindle. By moveing the
tail stock quill in and out you can apply more or less drive. You can go
from just enough so that you can grab the work piece till you can't. With
that you can experiment. With a little drive while turning your bead lift
the bevel and you will see the short point skate back. Since there is
little drive it is not violent and the piece may stop. This also works for
your spindle gouge. It lets you see what is happening when you turn. I
recomend this video if you have skew questions, it is a good referance.
Also if I am not mistaken Packard sells the dead center for about $24.00.
Good luck.

Bruce
"Ron Headon" wrote in message
...
I've now been turning for a number of years and happily churn out most of
the usual things with little problem - even to the point of having
mastered
a little twistwork! However, there's one stumbling block which seems so
fundamental it's almost embarrassing to admit it!: Turning beads with a
skew
chisel. I've just ruined yet another acorn-shaped finial because the skew,
once again, ran back up the bead resulting in one of those artistic spiral
dig-ins. I've tried using the toe end of the skew, the heel end, I've
tried
using a 10mm beading tool, all to no avail. I've understood that if I try
to
take too much timber off at once the cut gets blocked and the centrifugal
force applied by the wood becomes greater than the downward force of the
chisel - so I've tried taking off smaller amounts each cut. This results
in
having to take more cuts per bead to get the shape right and therefore the
chances of a dig-in seem to rise alarmingly. I can do a few beads
perfectly
OK and then the dig-in which has been lying in wait happens yet again.
Does
anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong? Oh, the other thing is:
do you use the bead-rolling technique to round the end of a spindle - for
example when forming an acorn shape or is there some other less hazardous
way of doing it? I'd be grateful for any help with this one - it's
becoming
a real pain.

Many thanks

Ron Headon
Swindon, England