How To Make Beads

           I learned to make beads from my mentor, Jen. I got to her house and she teaches me new stiles and other things about beads that I don't already know. but that is not the point of this entry in my blog. I will get to the point and not bore you even before I tell you all I have to tell.

           To make beads, you must first have the essentials in your tools.

I used, at the start, a hothead propane torch( I use a oxygen propane torch now), a kiln,

canes of glass(no one can make things out of glass without the glass), stringers(small canes of glass), a marver(to make beads cylindrical or to have flat sides), scrappy things, GOGGLES(you MUST were goggles when you are working with glass and fire), picks for racking, plus mandrels and slip(mandrels are sticks of metal that you cover in slip and put the glass on, the slip keeping the bead from sticking). I must warn you that, even when you are using slip (and I shall say that you are going to have to use slip if you actually want to make anything more that a bead-shaped bit of glass on a metal rod), you may still have some beads that stick to your mandrel and won't come off. You will want to be near a window for ventilation.

            To begin, now that you have your tools (or know what they are), you must pick your color(s) of glass.

Then you lite your torch.

 Next, you take you mandrel, dipped in slip, and place it in the top of the flame, twisting it with your fingers so as to warm it up.

Then you take a glass cane that you have chosen and hold it high above the flame, turning it in your hand just like the mandrel, which you keep turning, gradually lowering the mandrel into the flame. You will trade the places of the cane and the mandrel when the cane is nearing the mandrel.

After you have traded places, you will probably see the glass start to form a blob that threatens to fall of the edge. If it is so, you want to put the glass on the mandrel and start to...Pull I guess is the best word for the action you make next. If you do not have a blob that is about to fall off, but you have a tiny blob starting to form, you are still going to put it on the mandrel, but it is not quite as urgent as if you had a big blob. 

You make the bead into a sphere(you put the amount of glass on the mandrel and then roll the mandrel to get the bead as close to round as possible), cylinder like thing(to make a cylinder you use the marver to even the edges and flatten the sides), the possibilities are incredible. You can put stripes on you beads using stringers or another cane, you can rake the glass to get a fluted look. Anyway, after you have you bead looking to your satisfaction, you use the same motion to take it out of the flame as you did to put the glass cane in, reversed. you then, if you have one, put it into the kiln and if you don't have a kiln, you can put it in a cooker to cool it off gradually. when it is cool, you will want to dip it in water to get the slip wet and then take a towel and twist the bead toward the short end of the mandrel and if it moves, it will come off, if it doesn't move, you have got a bead that stuck, sadly.
 Edited on January 9, 2011.