Manufacture
Carpenters and carvers use the most readily available species of wood and bead making itself was used as an exercise for apprentices or as spare time work for journeymen. There is a wide variety of woodworkers and woods makers for an astonishing variety of forms, sizes, and types of the wooden beads. Since the wooden beads are so commonly found they are taken for granted. The amount of printed material on the subject of wooden beads is few and far between and the study of common wood beads is not considered a proper subject for bead research.
Types of wooden beads
Many types of species of trees provide materials for wooden beads. These materials include olive, sandalwood, bamboo, bayong, ironwood, ebony, apple, pear, palm and rose and many more. All these types of beads have been used for beads either because that the grain of the wood is beautiful or because the wood is very aromatic. Olive trees have a natural red grain that is wavy and the heart wood darkens and hardens with age to produce an elegant pattern. The heart wood comes from olive trees which are pruned each year after harvest and this wood is used for decorative carvings and beads.
- Sandalwood Beads: sandalwood beads are light both in colour and their weight and they have a distinctive soothing aroma. Among the Hindus, sandalwood is believed to bring clear perception to the occurring weather.
- Rosewood Beads: rosewood is good for making these types of wooden beads. It has a dark complexion and are heavy in nature and dense and its grain appears in small lines of black and dark brown. Rosewood beads are said to be strengthen the aura and ward away the negative energy.
Wooden beads are easily available due to the easy availability of the material it is made with and the crafting of these beads are most effective.