Annealing info, book recommendations & advice for a beginner.

[DQ Denyse]

I am a beginner living in Fairbanks, Alaska and don't have a kiln or easy access to one. I want to know if I should make a bunch of beads without being able to anneal them, I do have a blanket. Any dvd or book recommendations would be greatly appreciated. All advice for a beginner is welcomed!

[daisydog7]

When I first started making beads, I didn't have a kiln either. I used a can of vermiculite to cool beads in and sometimes a fiber blanket, but for me the vermiculite worked better. I cooled round beads with much success, but did not have as much success cooling pressed beads, such as lentils. I saved my beads for several months until I decided to buy a kiln. Some glass shops will anneal them for you for a price.
A really great book to learn about lampworking from is Corina Tettinger's Passing the Flame. Cindy Jenkins has a really good one which is cheaper called Making Glass Beads which is on Amazon.com for around $10. Hope this helps.

[DQ Denyse]

Thank you so much Daisy! I looked on line for info on Corina and she has a super website. The book is expensive but I think it may be worth the investment. We do have a glass blowing studio in town and I will contact them about batch annealing. How do you use the vermiculite for cooling?

[Emily]

You can certainly use a fiber blanket or vermiculite for cooling your beads while you learn. What you can't do is sell beads that haven't been annealed. I used fiber blanket. You just have to be careful that you don't expose the beads that are in the blanket when you put a new one in. If you want to try vermiculite, you just need to make sure that the visible glow has gone from your bead (if you're using Effetre/Moretti -- it should still glow if you look at it in a dark spot, like under your table) before you stick the bead into the vermiculite. Some people put the vermiculite in a crock pot to warm it up, but that's not essential, and there's even some debate about whether it helps or not. (Some people swear it does.) You can put it in a bucket or a coffee can or whatever. Just keep it covered when you're not using it if you have cats -- I am not kidding about this. Vermiculite has been mistaken for kitty litter. Leave your bead in the vermiculite for at least 20 minutes, longer depending on the size of the bead. You want the bead to be cooled down before you take it out. All the vermiculite (or fiber blanket) is doing is slowing down the cooling process. If you're uncertain, dig your finger down near your bead and feel whether there's any warmth. If it still feels warm, don't pull the bead out yet. If you take your bead out and there are bits of vermiculite clinging to it, or if you take your bead out of the fiber blanket and it has a fiber "beard" or texture, your bead was too warm when you put it away. You need to wait another little bit before putting it into the blanket or vermiculite.

Large beads, pressed beads, encased beads, and sculptural beads (beads that have some parts that are thinner than others) can have difficulty surviving without going directly into the kiln from the torch. It helps to have good core heat in the bead before putting it away. That's a skill you have to learn -- warming up a bead without melting the shape and decoration you created so carefully. To warm up the core of a bead, you give it a few turns in the flame, then hold it out of the flame (still turning for a little bit, in case the surface glass is hot enough to droop) for a little bit so that the surface can cool while the heat penetrates into the center, then a few more turns in the flame, then out of the flame to let the heat penetrate, and so on. If you've got a really big bead, this might take a number of steps because you want the heat to get the whole way into the center, and you can't add all the heat at once, because if you did, the surface would melt completely out of shape. The idea of "evening out the heat base" is for your bead to have a nice even glow thoughout the bead before you put it away. When you're just starting out, if you're making relatively small beads and most of them are round, this might not be something you'll need to think about much. If you start making larger beads later and are having some breaking, give some thought to giving them a nice even heat base before you tuck them away.

The Cindy Jenkins book is a good starter book. Lots and lots of us started with it. It's very accessible and user-friendly. Kimberley Adams also has a good book for beginners. I think it's called the Complete Book of Glass Beadmaking, but I might have that a little wrong. Corina's book is good for learning decorative techniques, but you might want to have one of the other two books as well as Corina's book, because it wasn't really meant to cover the same territory. Jim Kervin has a book called "More Than You Wanted to Know About Glass Beadmaking," which is a comprehensive reference book. Jim doesn't have the world's most graceful writing style, but the book is packed with information. He also has a series of booklets out that focus on individual glass artists and their techniques. The one on Jim Smircich is particularly good for learning about basic bead shaping and the use and control of heat. The one about Sharon Peters is good if you're interested in making sculptural beads. Sharon makes very silly sculptural beads, but you could take the techniques described in the book and use them to make serious and meaningful pieces if you really wanted to.

[daisydog7]

I used a large coffee can for cooling and left the beads in at least an hour and a half, probably longer than necessary. You have to practice a bit to find just the right second to stick the bead in the vermiculite... if it's too hot (red color still showing) the bead will droop a little as it cools. If it's too cool, it'll crack. But with practice you'll get it. When I finally did get a kiln, I batch annealed all the beads I had saved, and continued to batch anneal for awhile until I got my nerve up to change my technique. Now that I use the kiln, I find it is much easier because I haven't had beads droop or crack.

[DQ Denyse]

Emily and Daisy,

You have been so helpful. I am much more confident in progressing on this wonderful adventure. Knowing that there are artists like you out there ready and willing to help makes all the difference in the world.

My humble thanks!

[Bluejeangirlnc]

I took my beginner's class on the 19th of August. I'm using a hothead torch and no kiln yet either. I've been using the fiber blanket I got in the class and saving all of my beads in a cigar box when they're finished.

I have both Corina's book and Cindy's book. I've used them both and Emily hit the nail on the head for why. Cindy's book is the one I use when I feel like I'm fumbling with the basics or losing confidence. Corina's I use for inspiration and ideas for variations of dots and hope for future talents. I also have Corina's dvd on stringer control. I've watched it but until I've mastered the basic rolling the bead onto the madrel and getting it evenly shaped, it's pretty much out of my league.

I've got a question about batch annealing once I get a kiln. Do they still have to be on the mandrels to do that? Can I have cleaned them already?

[ewdb]

i used a fibre blanket but as i like to make pressed, big (2"+) and sculptural beads they kept cracking which was incredibly frustrating. finally i just bought a $10 crockpot from walmart, filled it with vermiculite and now crank it on high about 15mins before i start. i then put the lid on and leave it on for about 1hr after i'm done then turn it off. so far, so good... no more cracking. just remember to give the bead a good even heat bath in the upper part of yr flame before putting it away to cool.

my kiln came a couple weeks ago but i haven't used it yet... still not quite sure how...lol

[DQ Denyse]

I can't tell you how much all of the info and advice means to me! Many thanks to all of you.

[Emily]

You can take beads off the mandrels to batch anneal. Some people feel that the less you handle them before annealing, the better, but as far as I know, that's just gut feeling. I'm not aware that there's any particular scientific principle behind it (for example, anything saying that cleaning would accelerate such-and-such a process, increasing the stress and making the beads more likely to crack). I'd try to avoid dropping them, putting them in the freezer, running them through heavy machinery, feeding them to ruminant animals . . .

Sometimes beads will crack as you're taking them off the mandrel. I don't think those are beads that would survive annealing. Those are probably either beads that cracked while they were being made, or beads where glass was touching bare steel on the mandrel.

Evelyn, get that kiln fired up! What's holding you back? You got questions? We've got answers. When we don't have answers, we have opinions. When we don't have opinions, we have dumb looks. Sometimes we have both opinions and dumb looks. Frequently we have opinions that make us look dumb . . . no, wait a minute -- those are the politicians . . .