Gypsy Rose Creations
UPDATED 23rd January , 2008
I have so many people ask me how I make glass beads.
They are "totally" hand-made, building layer upon layer of MOLTEN glass to create patterns and pictures. All the work is done hot; once you start a bead you cannot stop until it is complete. For simple beads this can be as short as 5 minutes, for complex beads up to 90 minutes.
This is a picture of my "lab" set-up. I work on a mini-cc torch (having started on a hot-head and progressed through a minor). Note the rods of coloured glass on the left. All the glass is pre-coloured, and I use Effetre (Italian), Bullseye(USA), Rocio(USA), Vetrofond(Italian), CIM(China) and ASK(USA) glass.
This a photo of me making a bead - the coloured lenses filter out the brightness of the flame so i can see what the glass is doing!
Step-by-step making of:
round bead decorated with
melted stringer dots and
trapped air bubbles.What is "stringer"?
A stringer is a thin pull of glass, made by heating a glass rod until a molten ball is formed and then gradually pulling the ball with tweezers to create a thinner longer piece of glass
Making the bead:
A glass rod is heated in the flame to form a molten ball of glass. The bead is made by wrapping the molten glass around a mandrel (stainless steel rod approx 2.4mm diameter) which has been dipped in bead release to stop the glass sticking to the steel.
The mandrel is rotated in and out of the flame where the forces of physics work their magic and the glass wants to form a sphere.
The decoration of the bead begins with the application of small ball of molten stringer.
The bead is again heated in the flame until the stringer melts into the bead.
The bead is spot heated to create a super heated spot on the bead which is pushed with a poker to form a dimple.
The dimple is then capped with clear glass, the airbubble being trapped within.
Once again, the bead is heated, until the clear melts in and a spherical bead is formed .
The bead is then partially cooled before being put in a kiln at approx 450˚C. The bead is then annealed (heated and cooled in a controlled manner to ensure there are no internal stresses in the bead which could result in it cracking in the future).
The bead is removed from the mandrel and cleaned to remove residual bead release.
Grateful thanks to Chrissie for the photography.xx
© GypsyRoseCreations 2007, 2008