None of the Books I have .....

[sixbabygirls]

So another question for the in the know
can you rework a annealed bead ?
for example i anneal a bead one night and then the next day decide i want to add something to it can i and re anneal it ?

[CO_Phantom]

YES!

You can absolutely do it. There's a trick to it, though.

You have to heat it slowly in your kiln, on a mandrel with bead release, and hold it at around 1000 degrees. With a kevlar glove or tong type pliers (I vote pliers) reach in and grab that mandrel, quench the handle part of it in water so you can hang on to it without burning yourself, and take it to the back of the flame. Introduce it slowly ('cause even though that bead is too hot to touch, it's still cold in comparison to that flame!) and bring it in to where you normally work on it.

Do your alterations and back into the kiln it goes!

Just re-anneal it and it will be fine.

There is a risk that you will lose your bead in trying this, but if you think it's a fugly anyway, it's worth a try. There's just a trick to balancing the heat from the kiln and getting that handle quenched and then bringing it to the flame without thermal shocking it.

-Amy

[KEW]

Maybe. Depends on how lucky you are, imho, although some people are skilled at it. You need to bring it back up to a good temp in the kiln, get it to the torch and slowly reheat it and then rework it and then anneal it.

Everytime I have tried, I've ended up with cracks at the introduce it back to the torch stage. Maybe I am just too impatient.

ETA: Amy gave a much better description!

[sixbabygirls]

thanks for the info it sounds a bit tricky ??? knowing me i would burn myself !
but i am glad to know that if i wanted to i can

[ewdb]

yes you can, it's tricky though so you may want to practice on throwaway beads before trying with a good bead. my way is like Amy's with a few variations

i just leave the cooled bead on the mandrel and next session stick it in the cold kiln and ramp up extra slowly (about 200F/hr) to my garaging temp. I brace the bead just inside the door so most of the mandrel is sticking out (that way it stays cool and i don't have to worry about burning my hand when i touch it). for small beads a couple hours in the kiln at garage temp (940F for me) will heat them through to the core, for larger beads i may leave them for 3-4 hours to reheat, just working on other beads in the meantime.

then i take the bead and check the heat level with the under the table test - if it's glowing orange then i know it's hot enough if not, it goes back in the kiln for longer. once it's hot, then i start waving it slowly in and out of the flame FAR out from the torch head (near the very end/back of your flame) and slowly roll the bead moving in and out of the tip of the flame building up the heat from the outside layer in and inching my way back down to my normal working area as the heat builds within the bead. you need to be pretty patient during the reheat to avoid cracking - or an explosion.

Once the bead is reheated then just work as usual. i find sometimes really thin raised stringer might pop off but that's usually repairable. i've reheated and reworked encased floral and sculpted beads beads up to 3" - altho i really gotta love that bead to want to save it cuz that size takes forever to reheat.