Question on striped beads

[FlamingFrog]

Hello!

I am trying to do striped beads. I am wrapping my base color in a small disc then adding my dots then adding a wrap of clear and melting down.

I am getting stripes but they don't go all the way to the bead holes. The clear and the stripes stop quite a way from the bead holes. It doesn't seem to matter how many wraps of clear I do, it won't go to the bead holes. If I try to add clear to cover up the bare spot, the stripes won't go any further and they get a line.

Is there a trick to getting the stripes and clear to the bead hole or is it not supposed to go that far?

Hope this made sense.

Lonni

[Anne Londez]

They do not go all the way to the hole, although they can get quite close if you use a big enough wrap of clear. Try to build the clear in several layers, like a disk, at least as high as the height of the base bead and melt down slowly. Adding clear to cover up the edges will only push the design further down on the edges so it won't look nice.

[anissa]

I have by no means mastered this technique but it sounds like maybe your dots need to be a little bigger. With the clear casing once the wrap has condensed I sometimes nudge it towards the mandrel with my brass stump shaper. I also find it helps to focus the heat on the ends of the bead. Alternating from one side to the other. Have you looked at these tutorials ??

http://www.jaychantell.com/simplestripes.pdf

http://www.cauldroncreations.com/stripesHT.html

[cgreagor]

Thanks for the tips. I too have been trying to master this bead. I think my dots are too small and then I get the whole bead too hot while metling the clear. I will try this and see how it works!
Christy
www.firedancerjewelry.com

[FlamingFrog]

Thanks for the tutorials and the tips! I'm off to try again!

Lonni

[cgreagor]

I spent the last 2 hours working on this bead! Some tricks I discovered:
Make sure your dots are even and the same size
Melt them almost all the way down
Turn your gas down low when metling the clear on top

When my dots were not even or sized the same, it came out with odd shaped stripes and it worked better to almost melt the dots down. The second tutorial says not to but mine didn't turn out.
I am not sure why I want to master this bead. I wouldn't use it in my personal jewelry but there are just so many color combinations you could do!

Christy
www.firedancerjewelry.com

[squid]

pics?

[cgreagor]

Ok, I will take pictures! I think I have got it down but still need more practice. Getting the dots even to make the stripes even is the tough part....stay tuned for pics in the next day or so.
Christy
www.firedancerjewelry.com

[lldesigns]

Alot of it has to do with how you melt down your disk after you put all the layers of glass on. Don't aim the flame in the middle. Instead you want to aim the flame at the edge of the glass, keep turning it, and melt it down slowly that way. This helps the layers spread out as they melt down.



Excuse the cheesy diagram but hopefully this gives you the basic idea.

[Wonker]

Glass follows heat. If you want the clear and the dot beneath to go all the way to the hole, walk it down.

[Starrr]

Nice, even stripes are not all that easy to do, you'd think they were, but aren't. Try not melting in your dots before applying the clear like Ann said in several layers, clear on top of clear, and then melt. The clear will not take the stripe right to the bead hole, but with practice you can get them to look even.

Check out Corina's tut on her comfort beads, it will explain alot.

[Starrr]

Originally Posted by Wonker

Glass follows heat. If you want the clear and the dot beneath to go all the way to the hole, walk it down.

If you walk the clear to the hole it will distort the stripe because a stripe can not go around the curve in the bead. You can do it and get cool looking beads, but they won't have a stripe/straight line, across the body of the bead.

[navarre]

My 2cent tip

The base bead needs to be a tiny sucker - if your base bead is too big your in trouble from the getgo