Glass bead making is possibly some 5,000 years old and there is supposedly sure evidence of it about 4,000 years ago in that good ol' Fertile Crescent.
Our work was done on a mega-tough Barracuda torch. The beads are made on a steel mandrel that is coated with a clay bead release. The fuel used is a mix of kerosene and oxygen. Adding oxygen allows the slame to get much hotter and sharper or pointier, which allows for more precise work....see below. BTW, Mt. Made offers all of these activities as classes or just as personal use, for a fee. The faciility is quite exceptional and the access to materials and tools is top-rate...not bad for Thomas, Dub V!
Most of the glass rods come in single colors, but some, called filigrana, are a bit more interesting in their raw form. Filigrana means a clear rod encasing some colored filaments. It makes for some neat designs since the clear magnifies the color/s beneath it.
Another thing that I learned to do with multiple rods of differing colors was to make what is called latticino, which is basically a candy cane-esque pulled rod that is twisted. It can then be used for many purposes and it looks pretty cool on its own.
Rose B. makes the typical pizza shape that is the base for man a good bead...notice the orange flame makes it hard to see the piece she is working on...but with some good Didymium eye pro that blocks out the UV light....
...she/we can see it better, though slightly purple.
Here is the first step in making a super sick bead, John W. style! Check out his fine website here. He is adding a white base and will do his best to make it symmetrical...this can be done by rolling the hot glass on a graphite paddle, as seen below...
THEN, as if you thought he was just making wanna-be-muy-largo pearl beads, John proceeded to roll the evenly heated glass on the tannish enamel seen below, which is used to help the ultra-thin copper foil adhere correctly to the glass, and show up nicely.
After the foil is adhered, the bead is again heated to a lovely red-orange and then some silver foil is added. It needs no enamel and forms a speckled effect since the metal coagulates, unlike the copper, which makes an overall greenish color anywhere it is applied...like a rusty penny!
The bead is heated up h-h-hot and then rolled in silver foil...you can barely see the deep green color that formed from the enameled copper...
after some touch-up the bead is clamped to make a nice finished product, well, almost finished. First it must be put into a small kiln to be annealed, or slowly cooled to relieve the immense pressure that builds up when the bead is worked. Without that crucial step, even a slight temperature change can caue the bead to crack or shatter, and then tiny bits of glass get all up in yo' grill...and that sucks. So anneal it!
Here you see the kiln filled with (recently annealed) beads. The beads are left on the mandrels until they are cool enough to to remove, clean, and file if you suck at making "dimples" on the ends. Good dimples require no filing. I filed most of mine!
All of these beads were done with the metal leaf...notice the small silver specks on the top right on lower left beads? Neato...after I split Hypno I must finish some beads that were left...can't wait to see the final product! Maybe I'll post more pics if they are any good....
2 comments:
right on bright shiny corey C! can you make some glass "utensils" with that shit also yo? :)
Closet commenter,
The glass used to make these beads is called "soft glass," while the glass used to make "utensils" is much a much stronger borosilicate glass mainly composed of silica and boron oxide.
The beads have a high COE, or coeffecient of expansion and, if cooled too quickly, will shatter quite easily. So no, no utensils shall one make with such materials...but the same torch and tools may be used with the borosilicate. Frit happens!
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