Class notes 2022: Making Glass Beads

Class notes 2022: Making Glass Beads 

Baroness Ginevra Lucia Di Namoraza/ Carina Merritt

What are glass beads made of?

Glass beads are made of silica and other minerals melted at a high temperature to form a thick, viscous liquid. The liquid is melded into the desired shape and hardens as it cools.


What sort of glass beads are period?

Glass beads are significant because the presence of glass beads often indicates that there was trade and that the bead making technology was being spread. Glass beads can be found 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia, and eventually throughout most major cultures and times until the present.


Precautions

Everything is hot! Limit your burns! Wear clothes that will protect you, don’t touch the torch, the heated glass or anything that will melt your skin. If tired, or distracted, don’t play with fire. Literally. Also, eye protection is highly recommended, as well as proper ventilation.

Classes will require participants to wear enclosed shoes, tied back hair, fire-safe clothing, gloves and safety glasses. If participants have any of these, feel free to bring your own along, including a dust mask for handling bead release and didymium glasses to protect your eyes from sodium flare. 

Where to shop in Australia?

• Bead glass: http://beadglass.com.au/
• Chockadoo: https://www.chockadoo.com.au/
• Kilns and tools: https://www.glassfusing.com.au/

Forums

• Lampwork Etc 
• Talk Glass

Books

• Glass Beads: Tips, Tools, & Techniques for Learning the Craft by Louise Mehaffey
• Making Glass Beads by Cindy Jenkins.
• Passing the Flame by Corina Tettinger

Equipment needed to start

• Bead release
• Didymium glasses
• Fibre blanket or vermiculite, plus some form of annealing later if you intend to sell your beads
• First Aid Kit
• Gas hose
• Glass: Start with COE 104 and use a sampler pack or pick out a mix of colours you like.
• Graphite paddle or piece of graphite to marver beads on
• Hothead torch
• Mandrels in various thicknesses to make different sized bead holes.
• Materials for cleaning your beads – either a bead reamer, or a Dremel.
• Materials to mount torch, e.g., wood block, screws, clamps
• Propane tank
• Something to hold your mandrels up while the bead release dries – a tray full of sand is one option
• Something to rest hot rods on
• Tools such as tweezers, pliers, rakes, razor blades
• Water bowl

Equipment needed in the future

A Kiln to anneal beads. When you heat glass in your torch, you are creating a lot of stress in it at a molecular level. What you need to do is eliminate that stress, because if you don’t, the bead will crack.


Basic Technique

To make lampwork beads, you will need to melt down a narrow rod of glass over a torch. When the glass is molten, you can easily wind it around your mandrel using gravity as you twist the mandrel. The hole in the bead is formed by the space taken up by the mandrel. You may choose to marver or embellish your glass using various tools.


Basic Beads

Here is a link to my Pinterest board which has many different beads to look at: https://pin.it/10oG3Du

More Info

Here is a link to my blog which has more information, including upcoming classes and flameworking sessions at my studio in Canberra.