Help! Newbie has lopsided beads every time!

mignonette · #1 2011-01-15, 3:40pm

Thank you in advance for any responses! I am so frustrated right now I could cry.

I'm having a hard time getting a round bead! They are always lopsided and try as I might, I can't straighten them out. I am pretty sure it happens because when I touch the glass to the mandrel, it goes on in a glob instead of nice and slim . . .

Thanks Again!

BeadBlossoms · #2 2011-01-15, 4:20pm

Chances are, you are also not holding the mandrel completely parallel - if you are dipping it one way even a little bit it will go wonky on you. I wsore for a year I wasn;t doing that, but hmmm........yeah I was. As soon as I straightened out the mandrel the beads started to be more even. It takes a lot of practice. Do 100 beads and see if it gets better

deb tarry · #3 2011-01-15, 4:26pm

Also check the foot print of the bead. That is the width of the glass that touches the mandrel. A very common thing for beginners do is when adding the first touch of the glass rod to the mandril is to push it on then ease up a bit, this causes the first touch of glass to spread out wider than the rest of the wrap. To prevent this keep the pressure the same on the first wrap all around the mandril. Hope this makes sense its allot harder to explain with words than it is to show you.

mignonette · #4 2011-01-15, 4:31pm

Thank you for both suggestions! It is quite possible that I am not holding the mandrel straight and i am POSITIVE that the first wrap is much wider than the rest. If I use the same pressure, though won't I get a big blob? When I warm the glass it forms a blob at the end which ends up on my mandrel. I guess I need to figure out how to get just a little of the glass to go all the way around like a nice spacer disk . . .

Thanks again for your responses!

deb tarry · #5 2011-01-15, 5:29pm

Allow your blob (gather) to stretch out more like a foot ball than a fat blob, then add the tip of the gather carefully keeping an eye of the width of the foot print. I don't usually use the gather method because I find it too hard to manage the the large 'glob' and get it on even.

jonibird · #6 2011-01-15, 5:57pm

Hang in there, practice really does make perfect! ;c)

deb tarry · #7 2011-01-15, 6:37pm

That is so true ppp I played in the flame for six months then sat down and did 120 small beads for my Grand-daughter. I did them in the colours she was learning to recognize (she was three at the time) after that I was good. Keep on melting!!

BellaBean · #8 2011-01-15, 6:45pm

I wish I would have saved all of my first beads. They were the ugliest, wonkiest things on the planet. The first 50 were really bad. They started getting better after that. At around 100, they were at least recognizable as a bead. Keep trying. Have fun. Have the goal of playing, not making good beads. You won't get as frustrated as you learn.

Ps. Check out the fugly thread. It will make you feel better.

mignonette · #9 2011-01-15, 7:41pm

Well, thanks for the posts! I was just debating whether to throw away the bag marked "rejects". I guess I'll hang on to them. I think I'm about at 80, so I might be a slow learner.

Mr. Smiley · #10 2011-01-16, 5:47am

You can straighten out a wonky bead with nice even rotation and heating... this is of course easier said than done without practice. The things that frustrate you now will be child's play once you've made 1000 beads... they keep getting better... you can practice rotating a mandrel even when you aren't torching... keep a few near the computer or next to the Tv remote... or in your car... where ever you have idle hand time...

mignonette · #11 2011-01-16, 10:41am

I didn't know that you could straighten a bead with even rotation! I thought I read somewhere to pause on the wonky area. So I've been trying to work the wonky part back around by making it more molten and that hasn't worked out so well! That's great advice to practice rotating the mandrel. I'll try to post a picture later today for you to see. The casing is all on one side! I have to admit I sometimes use two hands to keep a steady rotation . . . I am sure that is a horrible habit!

gmkcpa · #12 2011-01-16, 11:40am

Like Deb Tarry says in post 5 - then add the TIP of the gather...

Boro will stick to a HOT mandrel, so I heat the end of my colored rod and get the mandrel hot at the same time, then touch the TIP of my colored rod to the mandrel and immediately start turning the mandrel to pull more glass off of the colored rod and wrap that glass around the mandrel. Starting a bead is NOT a two step process of touching the hot colored glass to the mandrel and then starting to turn the mandrel; it's more of a one step process of touching the tip of the colored rod to the mandrel and continuing to turn the mandrel to draw more colored glass off of the rod. Hope this helps.

Mary K · #13 2011-01-16, 6:17pm

The most perfect beads I make (in soft glass) are made on my EMS. That's an electric mandrel spinner. Love it for easy perfect beads.

Shawn T · #14 2011-01-16, 9:23pm

If your initial footprint is going on in a blob, try this: slow down, turn your heat down, and pull the rod down. Add this first to the mandrel, STOP, even out the tiny little bead and than add more glass onto the nice even footprint.

Once you can get this down you can easily move on to making beads without the above steps. Making even boro beads are a little more difficult to me and I have been making beads for over 12 years, switched to mostly boro about 3 years ago.

My graphite paddle, gravity, and a whole lot of patience are essential tools in the process making nice round boro beads.

deb tarry · #15 2011-01-17, 9:15am

Just another tip (as if you don't have enough running through your head) you mentioned that you heat the large bit and wait for it to move down to the smaller side. If the smaller side is not hot and fluid it will not receive the extra glass from above. To do this rotate the whole bead in the flame round and round until the whole thing is hot and moving then pause when the large area in on the top the rotate a couple of times then pause. Repeat until round if this doesn't work throw it across the room at the wall, this doesn't make it round but it helps relieve frustration.

AmorphousDesigns · #16 2011-01-17, 10:57am

"Repeat until round if this doesn't work throw it across the room at the wall, this doesn't make it round but it helps relieve frustration.[/quote]"

been there, done that! Also, I have seen the area around the bead hole nearest the mandrel turn a light green, I think this is when the bead release got cooked and crinkly exposing the SS mandrel and maybe fuming the glass a little? So now I try to just heat the glass and keep the mandrel out of the direct flame as much as possible with Boro.

mignonette · #17 2011-01-17, 3:37pm

So relieved to hear that you all get frustrated too! Believe it or not, it really helps. I found myself smiling yesterday when my beads (and I use that term loosely as they often resemble rainbow-colored raisins) one after the other got crammed unceremoniously (and molten) into the vermiculite. Between frying them, wrapping them lopsided and cracking off the release, I'm surprised I didn't start chucking them at the wall!

It was probably a good thing when I realized I was running on almost all propane and the O2 was empty.

I will practice trying to even out a bead without frying one side of it and making a nice, small footprint to start. You are right, Deb, I was letting one side cool and assuming the hot side would melt over. Can't wait to get my O2 filled to try all your recommendations . . . So thankful for everyone's help!