how to make custom knitting needles

How to make great handmade knitting Needles
Items you will need
1. Wooden dowels from hardware store or craft store
2. Garden shears to cut dowels to various lengths
3. 3 grades of sandpaper, I use 150, 400. 1500
4. Electric pencil sharpener
5. Power sander
6. Polyurethane and or wood stain if wanted
7. Foam brushes / paint brushes
8. Wooden craft beads with or without holes (w/o holes you will need drill
to make hole on one side)
9. Wood sealer, acrylic paint, varnish

. First cut your dowels to the length you desire

. Using electric pencil sharpener, multi-sized works best, sharpen one side
to a point (sorry no picture but I have one outside of my home that I use)

. Using power sander, hold tip and sand using 150 paper then 400 paper
until smooth (you can do this by hand also, just takes wayyy longer)

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. Hand sand the length of the dowel with same sand paper as before,
you can use the 1500 last to make a super smooth finish

. Once dowel is smooth enough, you can begin adding one coat of a clear
polyurethane or stain with polyurethane with foam brush

. Once dry, sand lightly with smooth sandpaper and add a second coat,
repeat as desired.

. Now you can prepare your end piece

. I buy wooden craft beads with holes, prior to this I bought them without
holes and then drilled a hole using my dremel, this was kind of messy

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looking sometimes. Now I just buy them with holes and cover the top hole

. With your finished cut dowel, sand down flat end until it fits into to hole
of bead (I use the electric sander for this and it works great)

. The end will now have a peg that fits snuggly into the hole of the bead

. Now I wrap some tape around the dowel (now it’s a knitting needle)
just under the bead to start painting the bead

. First apply a wood sealer to prepare the wood for painting, then add paint
as desired, and finish with a varnish, mine is glossy but you can get matte

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. After painting, cover hole on top with a nice pretty rhinestone, mine have
sticky backs
(Or before painting you can use wood putty of some sort to fill it
and paint over that no problem)

. Once that is dry and complete use the wood glue to glue on bead top
to needles, and voila your done!!


. To make polka dots I use the flat end of a small dowel
I have and it puts on perfect dots with paint, you can glue rhinestones

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all over which I’ve done or you can add beads

. For the beads... Using a dremel tool you will drill a small hole in the top of
the flat
end of your dowel, using a very thin nail (but long enough to fit thru
your bead and through your dowel) Using some wood glue put the nail
through the bead and into the hole and now you have a pretty bead on top

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. I’m very bad a creating with polymer clay, so this is what I have come
up with wood and beads and furniture caps instead :0)

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