Made first beads today! How to make round?

[ShellyJo1969]

I made my very first beads today, WOO HOO! It was awesome! I waxed stupid about it the family room room if you are bored and want to take a gander at my ravings. It was stupendous fun! And the beads I made were hideous! Lol! Wonky ugly things they were I had a blast trying to make them.
I even tried to put a few dots on, melted them in, it was like magic!

I know i just started, and I have only made like 12 beads , but I am trying to find the secret to making the bloody things round! lol! I had a few that were mostly round but still...most of them were cock eyed, off center no matter how much i reheated them and tried to roll the mandrel at a smooth even pace till they cooled again..but still NOT round. I don't think there is a name in geometry for the shape they were. Lol!

Any good tips for making them beautifully round? Or just Practice x 100?

Thanks!
Michele

[Copperrein]

Well...I've heard it suggested to make 300 spacers before anything else. I'm relearning everything and each time I start the torch I pull stringer, twisties, and then make at least 12 spacer beads.

With rolling the mandrel at a smooth even pace, as though it were on a precise motor...this isn't always the best way. I find that I can feel better than I can see a well centered bead. There's a special feel to the 'almost globby drip' that tells me how and when to turn. Mind you, the mandrel is always turning, and the tilt and speed changes are tiny. Its a feel for it....hard to explain....I'll have to draw pictures eventually.

[TBC Beads]

A couple of suggestions:

The first thing that may help you is to get a good, even "footprint" of glass on your mandrel. Focus on making sure that your mandrel is turning before you touch the molten glass to it so that it doesn't blob on, and lay down a nice, smooth round of glass with even sides. Then add more glass to this initial footprint, rounding up the bead outside the flame when needed.

When you're turning the mandrel, it may help to watch the horizon of the bead. You'll learn to see when you have a bead that's off-center by seeing when the horizon rises or dips, and can adjust the speed you turn the mandrel to compensate.

Also, here's a post with some great advice here on the LE forum: http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43361

There is great advice here as well: http://www.smircich.com/html/round_bead.html

It sounds like you have the basic idea down. At this point, practice is your best bet to fine tune your work. I like the 300 spacer beads idea Copperrein mentioned: It's been said to make 100 spacers (simple round beads). Then make 100 more. Then make 100 more. At the end of that, you'll have it down pat.

Good luck, and have fun practicing!

[Copperrein]

Then make a 100 more spacers, it'll be a meditation at this point and quite relaxing.

Here's a sketch I did to explain how I start a basic bead. This is what works for me, there are prolly 100's of other ways, but this one is mine:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs068.ash2/36773_1477982118831_1512096782_31190312_4356055_n. jpg

1. Make sure your mandrel is hot and you have an almost uncontrollable blob of glass. I *fold* my rods in the flame to create the blob (as opposed to spinning them into a mushroom). I tend to use 3 folds or more to start a bead depending on rod thickness

2. Let the glob drip just a little. Touch the glob to the HOT mandrel about center of mass on the glob.

3. Here's where I find the issues arise: Gently pull the glob away from the mandrel and start to turn the mandrel. We're not making stringers but I find having an uneven footprint due to an uneven first turn leads to lop-sided beads and unsafe holes. Try to keep the glass on this first turn as even as possible. 3-6mm is what I shoot for.

4. I continue to twist the elongated glob around the mandrel. Don't let it start to spin off to one side and make a *funnel* shape. I stand directly inline with flame, mandrel, and bead so I can see it head-on and make sure there's no goofy asymmetry to the twists.

5. The glass tends to try and cool now. Don't keep twisting, you'll just deform the soft bead below. Put what's left of the pulled out glob back into the flame, trying to avoid torching the bead itself...the point here is to melt the leftover glob enough to pull it away without deforming the baby bead.

6. After the bead is on it's own, start to melt it down. This is a cross section of what I aim for before melting down. I try to keep the footprint smaller than or equal to the desired width of the bead. During the melting and twisting used to finish it, gravity and surface tension will cause the glass to seek center. Your job is to make sure rate of rotation, tilt, and heat are ideal so physics can do it's job.

Hope this helps

[Dale M.]

STOP....Do not try to make any beads!!

Wind a glob of glass on mandrel in flame and play with it.... Glass is like an liquid and reacts same as any liquid when hot.... Its called fluid dynamics.....

A rain drop falling through space forms perfectly round sphere and this is probably what we expect our beads to do .....

But the glass is captive on a mandrel and is effected by gravity and centrifugal forces and heat....

Now you should do a gather and heat it till it is very "liquid" and rotate it on mandrel slowly and observe what glass does, it sags...... Rotate mandrel faster what does it do , it sags less and maintains shape better.... Rotate mandrel really fast what does glass do, it expands out .... This is gravity and centrifugal forces at work....

Now tilt mandrel end down what does glass do, it want to sag towards low end, change angel on mandrel (other end down) what happens? Again gravity...

Try a gather of really molten glass, it is very fluid... Let gather cools some it becomes stiff and doughier...... Its the heat...Play with gather for a while to you "see" effects of heat and gravity and centrifugal forces does....

Try you tools and push glass around some , make long thin bead or short fat bead or try to make a square bead..... Work the glass.....

This exercise will a waste a just a few cents of glass but the experience is worth ever cent..... Once you understand what the forces that are involved here, you will make better shaped beads.... Don't rush time at torch with experiment, you can use same gather till its a black crispy mess but it does not matter, its a learning tool..... A few hours spent playing and a few cents worth of glass will directly improve your bead quality on very next real bead you try t make....

Dale

[mtarara]

What Dale said!!! Play, have fun and you will learn from what you experience!!!
Mary T.

[PerfectDeb]

yep, play, have fun, squash them flat, mash them into cubes, whatever - round will come in time, when you get used to how the glass behaves

[labelleperle]

As a newbie myself, definitely what Dale said. One thing that I read that helped me, was do not try and shape in the flame. Get the glass hot enough and then shape out of the flame. It seems to work for me! Good luck - it's definitely an addiction :)

[ShellyJo1969]

Thanks everyone. Copperrein, That folding glass thing sounds interesting, I'd like to try that and wonder how it's done?

Dale, sound advice as usual. I'm gonna go play with my glass now but I'll be back!
:) Michele

[Copperrein]

Shelly, instead of constantly rotating the rod until it gathers up I dip it into the flame until a length equaling roughly 5 times the diameter is goopy. I then let it start to drop, and then tilt the rod so it folds back onto itself. Prolly not kosher, but then...*shrug* it's worked so far.

[lonerp]

As a newbie myself, definitely what Dale said. One thing that I read that helped me, was do not try and shape in the flame. Get the glass hot enough and then shape out of the flame. It seems to work for me! Good luck - it's definitely an addiction :)

This is IMO a pretty important point. Newbies tend to make small beads, small beads heats up fast and tend to get too soupie. I´m not telling you to make bigger beads, but to work cooler and shape outside the fame.

[KEW]

Heat, gravity and practice. It can be frustrating, but the practice is part of the fun!