Beading Tool, Beading Roulette. A jewelers tool, infrequently used in the medallic field, for applying a fine row of uniform beads on a medallic model. It contains a wheel with minute intaglio hemispheres, which when rolled across soft material, soft metal for jewelers – clay, plasteline or wax for sculptors – leaves a trail of perfectly formed beads. Also called milgrain tool. Such commercial beading tools come in a variety of uniform hemispheres in a dozen different sizes and also can be obtained to form a continuous rope or corded design. Early medallists, and some ingenious modern modelers, have crafted their own milgrain or beading tools. Use of a beading tool makes for a distinctive uniform design of the continuous border. The appeal of a newly carved wheel, however, is the appropriateness of the border element to the overall design of the work at hand and the crispness of the detail carved on the wheel. A beading tool plate

is used by diamond setters.