How to Shape Glass Beads
Making glass beads by hand has been an art form for thousands of years, though it didn’t become particularly common until the method was firmly established in Italy during the 1400s. It was called lampworking, because of the oil lamps that were the intrinsic part of the process. Certain types of glass were found to have lower than average melting points. These types of glass were manufactured in many different colors, which could then be melted with a lamp, combined around a heat resistant metal rod and cooled to form glass beads. The same process was used with more refined tools later on to create more complex glass decoratives. Nowadays the art is more commonly called flameworking or torchworking because of the high-intensity torches that are used. After you get the initial piece of glass wound around the mandrel, size it and add the colors of your choice, you can then alter the shape of the bead. Here is a guide on how to shape a glass bead.
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Things You'll Need
- Glassworking torch
- Mandrel with bead and clear glass coating attached
- Dental tools (picks and paddles)
Instructions
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Ignite your torch and take up your mandrel in your off hand. The bead on the mandrel should look a bit like a car tire in shape and a little uneven. The colored glass should be on the inside while a layer of clear glass should be surrounding it.
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Heat the bead in the flame while continuously rotating the mandrel. This will heat the bead evenly and prevent stress fractures. Don’t put the bead entirely in the flame; you want to heat the surrounding clear glass more than the interior colored glass. This should take roughly 10 minutes depending on what type of torch you have. The glass should begin to lighten around the edges, taking on a rippling sheen like oil over water. This is how you know it’s heated sufficiently.
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Take up a dental tool in your main hand. A paddle will work best. Round out the bead by pressing down on the edge of it with the paddle.
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Continue to heat the bead while you press it, keeping the paddle out of the flame to prevent it from sticking to the bead. Just press down firmly and evenly on the edges of the bead while turning the mandrel. You’ve made a rounded bead, and are done with the shaping.
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Tips & Warnings
Soda-lime glass is more common and cheaper to work with but because of its lower melting point and higher viscosity it is less forgiving than borosilicate glass.
Professional dental tools are effective in shaping beads because of their high density tungsten-carbide composition. They aren't much bothered by heat.
You could just as easily square the edges by pressing them inward toward the bead’s center if you didn’t want a round bead. You could also raise the center of the bead by using a dental pick to grab the bead and pull it up and outward while turning the mandrel.
When working with heated glass and torches you should always wear smoked goggles. This both protects your eyes from the glare of the glassworking torch and protects your eyes should sudden fractures develop in the glass and the bead explodes.
Never mix borosilicate glass and soda-lime glass. They have too different rates of thermal expansion and contraction, meaning they will explode if heated together or cooled together.
Leaded glass does exist and can be worked with. The most common and recognizable application of this is stained glass windows. If working with leaded glass, it is absolutely imperative to be in an open and well ventilated area and use gloves to avoid the danger of lead poisoning.
Resources
- Photo Credit www.beadingdaily.com
