Consistant bead sizes

[Parrotise]

Ha! Tom & Sage are the ones that taught that to me, too!!! Gotta love 'em!

[LemonSky]

Ohhhhhhh! Thank you so much for this very very helpful hint!
I´m still a greenhorn thinking about 5 to 6 weeks about how to produce
a pair of beads of an equal size for earrings!



Kerstin

[CJ]

Tess, I think that is an excellent tutorial, I have cut the glass before and used bent nose pliers to hold the cut rods but your idea is a much better one and a lot easier to get a much nicer, even bead. Thanks for the great idea.
CJ

[Josephine Wadman]

Thats a good idea.

I have a notch marked on the side of my torch top marver. I do a production run of 150 beads a week for a jewellery company which all need to be 12-14mm so I use that. I might get a couple that are a tiny bit bigger or smaller than they should be so I just use them myself.

[Art of Hand]

Hi All!

I normally use my bead press as a guage to make even round beads ...

Make a tiny doghnut, press it all round with parrallel thingies and measure the width on your beadpress. Press more, if the bead is not wide enough. Add more glass in centre, and melt, till the bead is round - if the width is all the same size, you will be able to eyeball the round to see if it is really round,/oval/doughnutty. I add/remove glass, add with a thick stringer at the end to prevent adding to much.

Hope this helps too!

Diana

[evolvingBeau]

Originally Posted by chrisdd

These are all great ideas! I hope y'all don't mind if I interject a safety tip?

Cutting, breaking and snapping rods creates glass dust. Please make sure that you don't inhale the stuff. Wash your hands afterwards and use a damp cloth to safely remove the dust from your work surface.

Be careful out there!

I have to third this (or fourth?). Disk nippers or a carbide scoring tool work better, faster and don't produce as much dust. I kind of cringe at the thought of the dust generated by using a dremel on glass. Even if you wore a respirator, you're still spraying glass dust everywhere only to be stirred up by foot traffic or air currents. Not scolding, just sayin.

[Beadbug]

Great tip thanks

[pipojasper]

Cool idea! I'll have to try it. I was wondering about dremmeling all the way through the glass I had visions of me with a dustbuster on my hands and knees finding all the shards that I sprayed everywhere. I think I might be skilled enough to just score it