How on earth do you get started?

[~Nita~]

I REALLY love the idea of making beads but as I'm searching through posts, all the terms and products I'm seeing mentioned are making me http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b304/Softncurvee/Smilies/stars.gif. I have no clue what I'm reading!

HELP! How did you get started?? What's the first thing I should do?

PS: I'm sorry if there's a thread somewhere on this very same subject, I tried to do a search but I didn't find anything

[VivianLampwork]

Hi Nita & welcome to LE. I taught myself how to make beads by reading and looking at pictures. A good book to start with is "Passing the Flame" by Corina Tettinger. It gives you step by step instructions. Everyone here on LE is helpful, so just ask questions.

Good Luck!!

[menty666]

Me personally? I took a couple classes on a whim and got hooked.

[AKDesigns]

Do you have a local store or a lampwork artist that you can go and watch make beads for an hour so you know what the process is and the skill needed to create beads? That would be a good start. Next, a class would be nice however I never took a class so it's not mandatory. If you can't take a class a book like Corina's Passing The Flame is an excellent resource.

[~Nita~]

Hi Nita & welcome to LE. I taught myself how to make beads by reading and looking at pictures. A good book to start with is "Passing the Flame" by Corina Tettinger. It gives you step by step instructions. Everyone here on LE is helpful, so just ask questions.

Good Luck!!

Thank you! I'll check ebay and see if I can snag a copy of that book.

Me personally? I took a couple classes on a whim and got hooked.

Do you have a local store or a lampwork artist that you can go and watch make beads for an hour so you know what the process is and the skill needed to create beads? That would be a good start. Next, a class would be nice however I never took a class so it's not mandatory. If you can't take a class a book like Corina's Passing The Flame is an excellent resource.

I wasn't sure how to go about finding a local shop (I'm terrible with online searches) but I did meet one person who lives very near me in my intro post. I hope to be able to pick her brain and see if she knows of any local shops I can check out. :D

[Wendyki]

if you want to try it out fairly cheap a hothead starter set is good too :)

[glassactcc]

I started with Cindy Jenkins "Making Glass Beads" book. I purchased a Mini CC torch and a few rods of glass and went from there. You really only need a few tools and a book to start. Once you kind of see what it's all about, you can add tools and glasses as you need them. Just start small or you will get overwhelmed. There is so much more out there than when I started. It's very confusing.

[Kevan]

Buy cheap glass. Don't bother getting the more expensive pretty glass until you know more about what you are doing. There is a fairly good learning curve to making a bead and you are going to waste some glass, so go with the Effetre or Vetrofond pastels and transparents.

[Jenfire]

See if any of the glass shops near you have a "try a torch" class. If not there are several folks on here that may be willing to let you come over to observe and try a bead. then go with a hot head starter kit. In the meantime get a pair of chopsticks and some honey. spin the honey onto the chopstick and get used to how it moves. That helps with mandrel control and watching how the glass will move when you start with it.
Jen

[Otter's Flame]

Nita,
I bought a hot head torch, some cheap glass, mandrels and bead release. A person showed me how to melt glass and apply it to the mandrel. I then taught myself to make beads with very little equipment. I acquired more equipment as time went on and I understood more of what I was doing and talking about...lol. I never used a book, DVD etc. I am sure to this day I make a lot of "mistakes" because I didn't take classes or learn from books but it is possible to get into it pretty cheap if you have the desire.

I have been lampworking about three years now and I just recently took my first class. I have been selling beads fuul time for about a year and a half though. I have the good fortune of being able to melt glass every day so I get in a lot of practice.

Otter

[Kevan]

I taught myself, also. If you are a self starter who has taught yourself how to do other things, you can do it on your own. There are books, videos and tutorials to help you.

I can't stress enough how important ventilation is. I think that is the most important thing, you have to have the ventilation.

[VivianLampwork]

You could go to the "Garage Sale" area here & start a thread that you're looking for tools to get started with. Many times you can get some good deals.

Garage Sale > http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=18

[Toni Lutman]

I started with Cindy Jenkins "Making Glass Beads" book. I purchased a Mini CC torch and a few rods of glass and went from there. You really only need a few tools and a book to start. Once you kind of see what it's all about, you can add tools and glasses as you need them. Just start small or you will get overwhelmed. There is so much more out there than when I started. It's very confusing.

Passing the Flame is a great book for techniques, but I started with Making Glass Beads also. It has a lot of great info on what you'll need, and isn't as expensive as PTF. I worked on a hothead for a couple of years as a hobby, then finally upgraded to an oxy/propane set up. I'd suggest you start with a hothead to see if it really is something you're going ot follow through with.

One thing I remember is that when I got my hothead "kit", it came with several tools that I never used after the first try. I think you're better off to pick and choose the ones you want to start with.

Good Luck!

[kevalund]

Nita,

I'm relatively new to this as well having started around the beginning of the summer this year and I can relate to how confusing it can be.

I purchased Passing the Flame and that was a great book for starting out and helped me immensely. The pictures in the book are great. I also got a Hot Head kit and started on that although I quickly moved up to a Minor because I fell in love with the hobby.

I would add that you will want to get some good eye protection as well. It might be worth your while to browse the safety section on this site. It's helped me a lot.

Best of luck to you.

Kristen

[Emily]

I started with a class, and was lucky enough to have a terrific teacher -- Kate Fowle (now Kate Fowle Meleney). Lots of people do start by themselves, though. Passing the Flame is a great book for learning decorative techniques, but I think it wasn't really meant to get somebody started working with glass and the torch from the ground up. If you're not going to take a class, I'd recommend Cindy Jenkins' "Making Glass Beads" and/or Kimberley Adams' Glass Beadmaking (I'm sorry, I can't remember the title exactly) as your first book, rather than PTF. I see Cindy Jenkins' book pretty regularly at Barnes & Noble, and have seen Kimberley Adams' book there, and you can certainly get them both easily from Amazon (or Borders or B&N on line).

If you'd like a video (I imagine it's out in DVD, too), I'd recommend Kate Fowle's beginners' video. It's basically her intro class. She originally did it so her students wouldn't have to take notes. She teaches on a Minor, which is an oxygen/propane torch, but even if you get a HotHead (a torch that runs on propane or brazing fuel and room air), everything but the info about setting up the torch itself will be useful to you.

I think the "honey on a chopstick" exercise might be too discouraging, and recommend that you don't try it. There are a few seconds when you're making a bead when the glass is like that, but most of the time it's not that drippy, and you have the option of taking the glass out of the flame and letting it cool and firm up. With honey, it's not going to get less drippy no matter what you do. I'd be afraid to try the honey trick, and I've been making beads for years. (Besides, most of the chopsticks I get have square handles. You need something round to keep it turning.)

EDIT: Thank you, Kristen, for mentioning eye protection! At a minimum, you need safety glasses to protect your eyes from bits of flying glass. Rods do shock when you put them in the flame. Glass also creates a bright orange flare when it's put in the flame. Although the flare from "soft" glass (soda lime) glass won't damage your eyes, it makes it close to impossible to see what you're doing, and is very fatiguing, so realistically you're likely to want a lens that filters the flare. That means either didymium (die-DIM-ee-um) or ACE (which stands for something like "amethyst contrast enhancement") filters. There are two companies that I know of that make glasses with the right filters. One is Auralens. Their brand of ACE lenses is called AUR-92. The other company is called Phillips Safety. There may be other companies I don't know about. The prices for glasses vary, mostly because of the differences in frames, but the bottom of the line glasses cost around $40 or so -- but your eyes are worth it!

[lunamoonshadow]

Making Glass Beads (Cindy Jenkins' Book)
A hothead torch
Propane (it's cheaper & works just fine for lots of us)
Safety glasses
if there's someone near you, you can't beat having a friend to show you how to light the torch & make those first few beads without setting yourself on fire (thanks Sue for being my "get started safely teacher"!!)
A fiber blanket or crock pot of vermiculite to tuck your beads into until you can get them batch annealed (you want them to cool slowly so they might last a while--you still have to get them annealed, but that will help increase their chance of survival!)
Some mandrels & some bead release (my favorite release is fusion--Nikki got me hooked--but fosterfire is good too--I used that one first!)
Some soft glass--either 104COE or Bullseye 90COE (you can't mix the two). Bullseye is more expensive, but it's stiffer--it does melt slower on the hothead. It's made in the USA, if that's something you're interested in. (I've got a fetish for um, well, all the soft glasses...sigh...)
A heat resistant surface to attach your torch to--I use a computer desk ($30 @ wallyworld) with a cookie sheet on it & GOOD VENTILATION (for a long time I torched outside)
~luna

[~Nita~]

Thank you everyone for all the great info/advice! I'm taking notes and heading out to do some searches. :)