Tom E wrote:
Hey , webwzrd, I think there are a few things at play here.  First, when I wear my beard without the braid it takes a MUCH larger bead or band to contain it.  For that I use one of the elastic bands I mentioned in my reply to metallic1 above.  I simply stretch the band between two fingers on one hand, coax the beard to a point, and whip on the band very near the bottom.  Th elastic band does all the work in that case.  When I wear the braid the hair is already packed well enough that a bead can fit without damage (at least I hope).  That's when I thread it through using the floss as I mentioned.  I must say too that your beard looks denser at the bottom than mine (read loads of jealousy here) so you may need a bigger bead than I anyway.  The bead you see me wearing in these photos has a 5/16" opening.   I simply braid the bottom couple of inches of my beard, pull it through with the floss, and then slide the bead up, place the holder where I want the bead to sit, slide the bead back down, and I'm done.  When I braid my full beard it's a different matter entirely as that requires either a very loose, big tie - about 1" in diameter - or that I braid it down to something that can accommodate a bead near the end, the latter of which still needs a pretty big bead compared to what you see in the photo.

Thanks Ton, lot's of good info, I think I see what you're saying. For the first time, my wife put a very tight bread in the last 3" and that really condensed it down quite a bit. Looks the goal should be to thread the very bottom portion into the bead and not try to use as a hair tie midway up the beard. I get it now.

Say, ever seen or tried something like this? Looks like you would simply wind the beard around it.
image

~ Full beard since 1977