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Beadmaking |
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Making glass beads, often called lampworking, seems like magic, even to a glass artist.
Within seconds, glass melts into flame. Whiskers of color turn bulging drops of liquid glass into tiny treasures.
The process is simple, but it requires the right tools, a steady hand and a flair for creativity.
I invite you to join me for a quick explanation of glass beadmaking.
Choose the Colors
I have a wonderful palette of opaque and transparent colors to choose from.
The glass comes in pencil-thin rods from a variety of international suppliers.
The Torch
I use an oxygen-propane torch to melt my glass.
It reaches above 2000 + degrees fahrenheit.
As I add oxygen, the flame intensifies and narrows, making it just right for glass beadmaking.
Early beadmakers made their glass beads over oil and wax lamps. Thus the term lampworking.
Make Stringers
Stringers are what I use to decorate my beads. They are a little bit like long, skinny, glass color crayons.
Using stringers I can make dots, lines, any shape I want.
To make a stringer, I hold a glass rod in my left hand and heat it over the torch's flame.
When the end is red-hot and glowing, I use a pair of tweezers to grab the rod's tip.
This next step is like pulling taffy. Keeping the glass hot, I pull a thin line about twelve inches long from the glass rod.
Once I take the glass strand out of the flame, it hardens, and I can use it to decorate my beads.
I'll demonstrate this later. For now, I set my stringers aside.
Time to Make the Bead
With my right hand, I poke a new glass rod in and out of the flame vertically.
With my left hand, I spin and heat a mandrel in the flame.
The mandrel is a long skinny stick I wrap the molten glass around.
It's dipped in a special mud to keep the bead from sticking to it.
Winding the Bead
After I heat the glass rod to the consistency of butter, I begin to wind it around the mandrel above the flame.
I keep the mandrel spinning with my right hand.
That assures even heating and stops the bead from dripping off the stick like honey.
This is the first layer. Some of my beads have many layers, but I'll keep this one simple.
I'm using green glass. Right now it looks red, but you'll see it change color as I work.
I continue winding the glass around the mandrel until it is the shape and size I want.
Decorating the Bead
Now I use the stringer I made earlier. Still holding the glass bead over the flame, I heat the tip of my stringer.
Using it like a color crayon, I draw a design on the bead. Notice the red has cooled to green.
Then I flash the bead in the flame.
This is a tricky part. I want to get it hot enough to secure the new glass to the old,
but I don't want it to melt into the bead.
- Voila, the Bead is Finished! -
Annealing the Bead
This is a crucial step. Without it, my work won't last.
Annealing lets the molecular bonds I broke by heating the glass into liquid reform slowly and evenly.
I put my finished bead, still on the mandrel, into my kiln. It is fired at 960 + degrees fahrenheit.
The bead stays inside for several hours to assure strength and longevity.
Ready to Make Jewelry
After the annealing process, I take the bead off the mandrel and clean out the hole.
It's ready to become a unique part of my handcrafted jewelry.
This was a very simple bead. Many of my beads have several layers and take up to half an hour to make.
I also use materials like frits, silver foil, twisted stringers and millefiores in my beads.
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