Making Glass Beads

Lampworking is the ancient art of working glass in a lamp. Glass beads were made by the Romans, and small glass vessels were crafted in hot glass around removable cores by the egyptians.

Today we use gas torches, I work with a Nortel Minor Burner which is a surface mix torch requiring Propane and Oxygen to melt the glass. I use rods of glass to make my beads, these rods come in many different colours, both opaque and transparent. I also need mandrels to make my beads on, these are rods of Stainless Steel that have been temporarily coated in a substance called a Mandrel Release to enable me to remove my beads at the end of the process.

To make a bead I carefully heat the end of a rod of glass in my flame until molten, touch it to my mandrel and wind a disc of hot glass around the mandrel. I carefully melt down this disc while rotating the mandrel away from me, until I have balanced the mass of glass to make a donut shape. This is a basic bead, I can stop at this point or add more glass in different colours to make various patterns.

After I have the bead how I want it, I put it into my kiln to soak in the heat with all the other beads I’ve made, until I finish my session. I then ramp up my kiln to the annealing temperture of the glass I’m using and anneal the beads for the set time, then I slowly cool it down. Annealing removes the stress from the glass that has occured during my making a bead, this is a very important process because if the stress is not removed, the bead may crack and break at a later date. It is especially important when using metals or dichroic glass in my designs.

When the kiln is cool I can remove my beads and take them off the mandrels. I then clean the inside of the hole to remove the mandrel release and rinse and dry them.

I inspect every single bead to ensure there are no cracks before making them available to  you. My creations are then ready for your creativity.