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Old 2007-11-25, 1:22pm
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FiG FiG is offline
Forms in Glass
 
Join Date: Apr 05, 2006
Location: Pittsburgh PA
Posts: 899
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I know it is very unprofessional of me but I rarely will clean a mandrel hole. For this I have taken many an earbanging. Rather than incurring the wrath of any more Bead Nazis I just make most of my beads off mandrel.
To make a ring I take a 2" section of twisty. Holding an end of that section with tweezers I run the entire length of twisty up and down in my flame untill it is warm and will not shock itself into pieces. At this point I will attach a piece of store bought stringer to the center of the twisty. When I let go of the twisty with my tweezers I am left with a T of glass. I continue to run the cap of my T up and down in the flame rotating it so I can get both sides yet carefull not to heat the punty or the connection point of the T. When the twisty is soft I bend it into a ring shape, there is no need to rush at this point the slower you bend the glass the more controll you have. I then fuse the two ends together. Now is the difficult part. Using a large graphite reamer I put it inside the hole to make the ring round. The issue here is you are drawing the glass thinner. To thicken use heat and allow the thin part to congeal. I will rub the reamer on the outside of the ring this not only helps shape but it also helps congeal a thin section. I am carefull never to press the reamer on one little section of the ring as this will dent the ring, insted I rub the ring so as to effect more surface area. I will use flat mashers to make sure the ring is flat. Just like makeing a marble to get a true round I transfer at least once so I can work the area that was attached to the punty with more ease. When I am happy with my ring I will transfer onto a punty stringer with a very tenous attachment point. I then heat up a pair of tweezers so as to not shock the ring when I grab it with them. I break off the stringer fire polish the bellybutten then toss into the annealer.
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Michael Mangiafico

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My Etsy

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