Making nålbinding needles has become a new hobby My very first needles i made were from an ice cream stick.
The stick was made of beech wood, flat,not too thick and i was able to make my first needles with it. The needles were not really durable and i started using other material, viz. bamboo. Bamboo is very strong, flexible and you can also sand it very smooth.
In the foto above the bamboo needle is 12 cm long, 5,5 mm wide and flat with a blunt tip. I was still looking for the right proportions, the ‘blunt’ tip was perfect because you don’t pierce your thread. The bamboo needles i made next were 5 cm to 14 cm long and 1cm to 5 mm. wide and smoothed with 1000 grit sandpaper. After the bamboo needles i made needles from : Antler. Cowhorn. Taksis. Hawthorn. Santos palisander. Bloodwood, kokobolo and teak wood.
These materials are precious and very beautiful and you can polish the needles very smooth. The foreign types of wood are also not always available. Bamboo, on the other hand, is often for sale in garden centres. You have bamboo (thin wall) and the tonkin, which has little sap wood.
Here you can see how i make my NEW OVAL NEEDLES. The needles are NOT flat but……….OVAL, so they slide even easier between your fingers 🙂
The bamboo is first sawn to manageable lenght with a jigsaw.
The dirty bamboo is scraped clean with a scraping iron.
Close up picture.
When the bamboo is clean i will cut it to lenght (9 cm) with my band saw.
The next operation is splitting the bamboo.
With this splitting, the Bamboo is divided into 4 strips.
After this, a hole of 3,5 mm. drilled into the bamboo strips.
After drilling, the edge of the hole is cleared.
The edge of the hole is now smooth.
The sapwood is cut from the strip.
After this, the bamboo strip is cut into the shape of the needle with my knife.
This is the rough shape.
The oval shape is sanded with 80 grit coarse sandpaper.
After this i will sand with grit 400.
Then with grit 600.
Then with grit 1000 the needle is already fairly smooth.
And then with 1500 grit the needle is smooth.
It should now shine even smoother and more beautiful, so grit 2000.
And then with grit 3000 the needle is very smooth end the bamboo shines.
With 3M 6000 pad the needle becomes super smooth and the needle shines even better.
And………..then there is also 3M 8000 pad and the needle becomes Super SMOOTH and it is Super SHINY 🙂
Cose up picture: Oval nålbinding needle
The New needles are NOT flat but Oval, so that they slide even more easily between your fingers. I treat my needles with grape seed oil. Research has shown that almost 1 % of the population is allergic. I deliberately did not use beeswax because of vegan motives.
After 45 minutes the needle is ready 🙂 Have fun with making nålbinding needles and choose the materials what you prefers.
bert veugelers the Netherlands
happy needlebinding
happy needlebinding is also the name of my YouTube chanel.