Pulling beads

When I learned to make beads, I was taught to pull them holding the mandrel with pair of pliers.

But this is much easier on the wrists.

A good quality vice, mounted on a sturdy table that is attached to the wall. 

• open the vice, 
• clamp the mandrel, close to the bead
• twist the bead off
• release the mandrel and repeat

The bead release ends up falling on the floor, and is easy to sweep up, but you could set up so there is a pan to catch the bits.

If you are pulling beads that might break or have rough edges, I suggest holding them with a cloth.

You can soak the beads in water if you want to keep the dust down. It might help lubricate stuck beads, but improving your technique and buying good bead release will probably help more.


Cheers!

Top 10 Reasons Why You Will Never See That Bead ...

Not every bead is a winner. Or even in the running! Quality control is why you will never see every bead a lampworker makes.

For those of you who don't make beads - you probably have no idea how many beads that the typical lampworker has had to throw out or discard (or hide in a drawer or jar or box pretending that there is some other use from them at some point in the future) in order to present you with the selection you are seeing.

So I present to you - the top ten reasons that you will never see that bead. 

1. Interruptions - the phone rang, the doorbell rang, the dog needed to go out, one of the kids threw up -  and the bead got abandoned, tossed in the kiln unfinished, dunked in the water pot, or generally just put aside. You don't go back to them and continue. Generally. (There's exceptions - but it's not trivial.)
   
2. It cracked. Cracking can be massive, or so subtle you don't see it until you take the photo. Sometimes there is a streak in the glass and you run your nail over it feeling for the break; "Dammit - is that a crack?" There are lots of causing for cracking - but that's another article.
   
3. Chipped while cleaning. For the love of gawd, somebody please make an affordable, decent bead-cleaning bit. Do not get me started on this.
   
4. Bead release broke, bead started spinning on the mandrel, and bead release stuck to outside of the bead. You can sometimes save these - if you are near the end of the bead - you build little bridges of glass to anchor the bead - but sometimes - it's not worth the effort.
    
5. Permanently stuck on the mandrel. Failure of the bead release that you did not see, deep under the bead. Now you have a cake tester, plant sticker, hair stick, garden ornament ... or several hundred of them. Sometimes there was a bend in the mandrel. Same end result. We all have piles of them.  (Spotting a trend here, are we?)
   
6. Used the wrong colours. We torch with tinted glasses on, plus the glass looks different when it is hot. Sometimes you just pick up the wrong rod. Sometimes it's a happy accident, but sometimes, it just doesn't work.
   
7. It was a test - and it didn't work. It was experimental - but ... no. We won't show that one to anyone.
   
8. It was part of the learning curve. I have two months worth of mutant horse beads that would make a dandy boat anchor.
    
9. It was one of those days when everything you made was crap. We all have those days. Sometimes, you can put them away in a drawer, and take them out two months later, and they are not as bad as you thought. But sometimes - they are worse. 
   
10. and the number one reason ... it's ugly. It's a disappointment. It falls short of expectations. Maybe it has a flaw, a sharp end, a line of scum in the glass, an unfortunately placed air bubble, an unattractive colour reaction.  When we make beads, we fall somewhere on the spectrum between craftperson, using our hard-won skills to make beautiful but fairly prosaic, functional beads to be incorporated into a finished piece of jewelry - all the way up to genius artists making wonderful little pieces of standalone art that will endure the centuries.
    
    But no matter where we are on that spectrum at any given moment in time - we take pride in our work, and balance the cost of the effort and materials with the end result. And if the end result falls flat - if we wouldn't buy it - we discard it. You never get to see it.

So when you are polling through that tray of beads - give a thought to the ones you never see - because the ones you do see are pre-selected by the artist - it's all part of the experience. ;-)

Sorting the Stash

I spent New Year's Eve (and part of New Year's Day - so yes - it took me 2 years) sorting and organizing my stash of glass. This was highly productive, because I found a number of glasses that I thought I was completely out of and now, I have them!

I have gone from "why do I not have any black/white/clear?" to having pounds of each. I found a bunch of that light minty Lauscha green that I thought was gone. A few rods of EDP, a rod of "Earth." Some of the OLD Rubino. Some old transparent Laucha Pink. Some of the old CiM Cirrus. Pounds of Fossil and even some River Rock.

And I freed up some floor space and shelf space and just generally re-acquainted myself with what I have. And with it all sorted by colour now - I can find a "close-enough" more easily.

Of course - this is bad news for the glass industry, as clearly - I do not need to buy more for a while!

This came about from a quote in a book that I read over the holidays - "Steal Like An Artist - 10 things nobody told you about being creative" - by Austin Kleon. It's actually a really good book and I highly recommend it - it is encouraging without being the sappy, sentimental "just believe in yourself" kind of unhelpful bull-crap that fills the marketplace these days. Anyhoo - one of the comments is "be tidy and organized in your work place, so that you can be wild in your art" - or words to that effect. I think it is a valid point - the tools and materials should be to hand and findable, so that you can produce your vision instead of hunting for the whatever it is you need right now. Knowing you don't have it is also better than hoping you do and taking three days to look for it.

I also really liked the comments about digital and digits - that making things with your hands is a counterpoint, and possible antidote - to our sedentary, digital lives.  

So there you have it. Happy organizing.  Even Happier Creating.

Changing the Filter on your Oxygen Concentrator

If you are using one or more oxygen concentrators to provide oxygen to your torch, you should know that there is a filter inside them that you need to change sporadically.

It's pretty easy to figure out the open celled sponge filter, just blow that puppy out with canned air, or even rinse it out (let it dry before firing up the concentrator) - but there is ANOTHER filter inside - that I actually didn't know about.

Apparently - you should change it once a year if you are torching daily - or even 20 hours a week.

Or, you can wait until your concentrator starts shutting itself off after running for a few minutes, and then run around panicking. Depending on if you are a fan of preventative maintenance or reactionary swearing. ;-)

The filter looks like this, on the left, or an older style on the right. I replaced both with the style on the left and it seems to work fine.

It lives in the compartment on the back with the sponge filter in the door. Open the door, pull the filter up and out (a little twist helps) but it is just a friction fit.

Put the new filter in, close up the door, and you are good to go. Takes 2 minutes. Literally - here is a 2 minute video showing you how.




So - when's the last time you changed the filters on your concentrator? ;-)

Pet Peeves about Bead Release Containers

I like a long dip. A deep dip. I like to be able to make long or wide beads, or multiple beads on a mandrel.

And, unless you buy the really big bottle - you can't get a long dip. And that's not a good idea, because the darn stuff dries out. You can re-hydrate it if you catch it before it goes completely hard, but that's a pain to do.



So I pour mine into this old orange juice bottle. I get a nice long dip on the mandrel without needing so much bead release. And you know what - it doesn't dry out in there either.

Why? Because it was designed to store liquids. Because if you bought orange juice and half of it had evaporated and you had to add water - you'd be p'd off.



Yeah - I know to store the bottle upside down - you know what - they are still not airtight.

So, here's my question, how come the manufacturers of bead release have not figured this out?
A - a thinner jar. B - airtight container.

It's not friggin' rocket science.

I'm not naming names here - you all are doin' it.

end of rant. Thank you for listening. ;-)

Light

Why, readers of the last few posts might wonder, does she keep whinging about a light. Probably because you didn't see my posts about it on facebook, to whit:

Are compact fluorescents supposed to make a hissing noise and then start smoking?

Literally - smoke started pouring out of the light, and not a puff either, a sustained trail of truly, stunningly, vile-smelling burning electrical fire type smell.

This was not  just any light bulb, but one of the ridiculously expensive color balanced light bulbs, bought from a specialty photography site.

Hmmm. The smell was so awful, I had to put the light out in the garage for a while, even after removing and discarding the bulb. It did clean off, but hoo-boy - it was nasty.

This does demonstrate, however, that "it is all done with smoke and mirrors" - and once you let out the smoke ... it don't work no more. ;-)

Cleaning Beads

The only thing I hate more than pulling beads is cleaning them. There are so many frustrations. The unreasonable difficulty in finding a straight sided bit for one thing - reaming out a straight-sided hole with a tapered bit is an exercise in frustration. And stabbing yourself with that point, amiright?

Anyway - this is my most recent set up to attempt to ease this chore.

 It starts with our old friend, the portable vise. Sure - a regular vise would work too - but lots of us have to make do with using the kitchen and not a dedicated space.


 I'm clamping the foredom flexshaft into the vise. This saves my having to hold it steady. I used to hold this in my right hand, but realized that meant I was doing the manipulation of the bead in my left - which is less controlled than my right (me being right-handed.)

Putting it on an angle uses gravity to pull the water and debris down and away (I tried it level - keeping it wet wasn't an issue, but it did take longer to clean a bead, due to it not flushing itself.)

The tip of the bit sits in water - for lubrication. The bits don't last worth a damn if you don't keep them wet.


 I had a battery-powered, pistol grip dremel, which I loved. Actually - I've had 3 of them. The most recent one had the bit fuse/rust in place, and there was no getting it out without destroying the dremel.

The best thing about the dremel - two things - one, you can set the speed with a dial, and two - the battery only lasted about an hour, so that you didn't attempt to clean more than an hour's worth of beads at a time.

After the third one died, it occurred to me that I might as well use the perfectly good foredom that I've had for years.

I bought the foredom with the foot pedal control - because that's what we all do, right? And if you are sitting, fine, but when you are standing, the effort of standing on the foot pedal with enough control to not have the bit running so fast it scares the snot out of you, means a balancing act that leaves you tired and aching.

So I put a clamp on the foot pedal - yes - I can buy a controller with a dial - but I have a clamp, thank you - and that solves that.

The sink has a water hose, but it won't stay on by itself, so a wrap of nice thick rubber bands solved that.

And there we have it. It was over two hours to clean these - closer to three I think. In the ball park of 500 beads or so.


If you are not a beadmaker - this is one of those frustrating and unglamorous chores that goes into making those exquisite little gems. Appreciate it. Appreciate the hell out of it.

Pulling beads

I hate pulling beads. Hate it.

But this little puppy makes it easier. This is a portable vise - it suctions to a smooth surface - like the kitchen counter - a wipe of water on the suction surface helps enormously, and you can put your mandrel in the jaws and clamp it, and pull the beads without the fear of stabbing someone with the mandrel, the need for a set of vice grips to hold the mandrel - and the aching hands. And shoulders.

Here's a little video. There is a hole in the jaws that a mandrel fits in, but the 3/16s mandrels are a little small - so clamping those in the jaws directly works better - but the video will give you the idea.

Honestly - I have no idea how people are making all these one-handed shot-with-their-phone how-to videos. I find the interface for using the camera on the phone to be hard enough to use with two hands - one is freakin' impossible. As soon as I grab the phone - I inadvertently touch some part of the screen that triggers some action that is not what I want. Argh.

Anyway - you'll get the point.

Drilling Glass

Here is an excellent, short video about drilling glass. It is specific to "sea glass" - but the principle is the same. If you have been experimenting with fusing, or off mandrel work, and would like to drill a hole - this is how.

The phrase "let the drill do the drilling" is really important - let the drill do the work, instead of leaning on it and trying to force the drill through.

You could make your own "sea glass" by melting up chunks of scrap glass, and then annealing them, and then etching, sandblasting, or tumbling them. There is an entire community of people out there who would consider that statement to be blasphemy,  but "sea glass" is broken glass bottles tumbled in salt water and sand. Mostly beer and wine bottles, fallen off boats. Hence the mostly clear, brown and green. Some blue - vodka, and the occasional red piece, a broken port running light.

Thoughts on Scum on beads

Recently - I got a phone call from someone who has just set up a her own home studio. Naturally - she is enjoying the freedom to torch when ever she wants, the luxury of not having to tidy up (as opposed to a shared, commercial studio), and the instant (well, almost) gratification of being able to see her beads as soon as the kiln has cooled down.

However, what she was not enjoying was that instead of the sparkling little gems that she was used to making, each bead, though perfectly formed and the envy of many - was a little dull, a little lifeless. Close inspection - with magnification - revealed a faint, subtle but visible, scum over the transparent glass, with a little pitting. She was at her wit's end trying to figure out what was happening. We discussed gas to oxygen ratios, her concentrator, the difference between natural gas and propane - adjusting the flame - nothing seemed to be the solution.

Finally - I said I would drop by  and take a look at the set up - to see if I could diagnose it in person. When I got there, she told me, "well - this is embarrassing - I fixed it."

And indeed - the latest crop of beads were sparkly and delicious.

What changed?

She changed to a fresh tank of propane.

That was it - the only difference.

So next time you are struggling with scum - consider your fuel source. Maybe a new tank of propane is in order?

Couldn't hurt.

Task Lighting and Studio Set up thoughts

When setting up your torch and work bench, you need to pay particular attention to lighting. I do know people with their studio set up in brilliantly-lit rooms in strong sunlight, and for the life of me, I have no idea how they can read the heat in the glass. I wound up torching somewhere once with full sunlight shining right on the torch - and I couldn't even see the flame, much less figure out if the glass was going to melt. It was a fairly hellish experience. To each, their own, I guess.

I prefer the torch itself to be fairly dark, so that I can easily read the heat base in the glass as I work, and a bright light nearby so I can tell what colour rod I'm using, and to wash out the effect of the heat in the glass, so I can check and see what the bead will (more or less), look like when it's cool.

Here - you see a 3-light standard lamp - one light shining down on the table to illuminate the glass, and handy to hold beads in progress up to, to check the colours. The second light bounces off the wall, and the third is aimed straight up, to bounce off the ceiling, for diffuse, indirect, ambient light.



Nothing to do with lighting, but my "assistant" - the glass rod rack - stands behind the torch, lined up, so that the protruding rods receive heat from the flame. I can adjust the heat they get by sliding the rods to the right, out of the flame, or left, into the flame. The first (lowest) three positions get the most heat (slot 2 and 3 will line up right in the flame, and slot one gets a little less heat, it clears the flame. The other 4 hold glass and keep it handy - also good for drying big mandrels. Or regular ones. The assistant is great for big rods, shocky glass, and for seriously speeding up production work! I adore it and consider it to be seriously useful.



And here's another idea. My dipped mandrels (they are stuck in a piece of floral foam - Oasis - by the way) - they sit on a lazy susan (from Ikea) - so that I can rotate it to get at the big, thin, long, fat, or dry ones, as the case demands.



There you go - some food for thought. The task lighting is really important, though, I think. You will do better work if you can "see" the heat in the glass easily, but some patterns and colour combos, you just don't know what you are getting if you don't look at it under a strong, direct light.

Gives you more control over the end result!

Kiln Troubleshooting

A couple of weeks ago - I started to have trouble with my kiln. My studio is a room over from my office - and the kiln is out of sight from my desk - but you all know that distinctive click that the relays in your kiln makes? That sound carries a fair ways. So - I'm sitting here at my keyboard, it's early in the day, and suddenly - I hear beeping - followed by the kiln "clicking." (I have the Paragon F120, btw.)

Well - that's odd, thinks I, and I get up and go look. The kiln is happily sitting there, displaying "Idle" and the room temp. Ok - go back to work.

It took me a while, but finally, I caught it in the act - the display would come on full - lighting all the LEDs and giving me 88.88 on the readout, then it would beep, and then the relay would click, the kiln would heat up a degree, and then it would shut off and go back to idle.

Well - a kiln that decides to spontaneously heat up a degree doesn't sound like a good thing, - it might be habit forming and decide next go for 2 degrees, or a 100, or a 1000! So I shut it off and called a friend. She suggested that sometimes the fuse can be getting "weak" - and I should replace the fuse. Fuses are cheap, (replacements at Canadian Tire), so I did that. And thank you to whoever decided that the fuse should be easily accessible on the front of the kiln. Seriously - thank you. Hint. Put the serial number on the front too.

That appeared to stop the spontaneous turning on and off, but, to be safe, I left it off when not in use, so it's hard to say. It was a few days later that I managed to clear some time to actually torch - so I fired up the kiln - and it had been on an hour - when it spontaneously failed, all 8s readout - alarm beeping, and then when back to running.

Only now - when I checked - it was running program 01. Program 04 is my normal annealing program. (I think my rationale to use my most commonly used program buried down the list was that if someone comes along and randomly pushes buttons and messes up a schedule - they are less likely to mess up Program 04 than 01.)

Program 01, I have set up as a fusing schedule. So the temperature rapidly overshot my normal garaging temp, and started to shoot up into the 4 digit area. I reset the program, but the kiln continued to fail and reset itself to running Program 01 from the beginning. Ok - call it a night.

Next day - I talked to Paragon kilns - described the saga in detail - to which they listened patiently, and then had me repeat the conditions for the failure - to determine whether the lights on the side came on - which I hadn't noticed. (I realize now - the Program/Review/Run lights on the side were not well lined up with the holes they shone through - which made them difficult to see unless you duck your head down - so I have been pretty much ignoring them.) Once I knew that (all of them came on at once) - I called them back - and the verdict was - the digital controller board was toast.

Paragon overnighted a new controller to me - it was in my hands by 10 the next morning. It was the work of a few minutes to replace the controller. Hubby did it - it's electronics, so he finds it interesting. This is what he did. Unplugged the kiln. Took out the four screws holding the controller in place - the display and board came out together. Unplugged the wires from the left and the right. Plugged them into the new controller. On the sensor (thermocouple) side, he matched the wire colours to the blocks on the board - although he says this is not strictly necessary. Put in back into place, reused the screws to put in place. Plug the kiln back in. Well - actually - he also unscrewed the board from the display panel before discovering that the new board had it's own display panel, but you don't need to duplicate that step. ;-) I only mention that because you can see it in this photo.



Kiln reassembled and starting a test run.


Overall - it took longer to find a Phillips screwdriver than it did to remove and replace the board.

Paragon kilns - both the kilns and the company - continue to impress me. This kiln has been working flawlessly for about 5 years, and when I called with a problem, they were super helpful on the phone, and had a replacement part to me the next day.

I wish the whole world was like that: helpful, competent and efficient. What a nicer place it would be. ;-)

Studio Tip: Keeping Glass Warm in a Coooooold Studio

I just had a thought - a borrowed technology thought. I know lots of folks set up their studios in un-heated (or underheated) garages, sheds, workshops, etc. After all - once you get going, the torch and the kiln help warm the space up, and you can schlep the concentrator inside (they don't like to be damp or frozen.) And, you can also haul all your glass inside every time too - but once you've accumulated more than 4-5 pounds - that starts to get old. How nice it would be to have all your glass, stacked and neatly organized, nicely kept handy, and at room temperature - even if the rest of the studio is cold. Because cold glass is shocky - really shocky. Sure - you can stick a few pieces on top of the kiln or run a hotplate to pre-warm. But what if it was just room temp - after all - not all glass needs to be warmed that much.

This is an idea borrowed from my hubby - who's hobby is also glass - but the kind that comes as a fabric and gets stuck together with resin. He's building an airplane - a fibreglass composite aircraft - and the resin for construction of the aircraft - that bonds the fibreglass - must NOT freeze - even though the workshop gets cold. This is what he, and scores of other homebuilt airplane crafters - which there is an entire thriving community of out there - do. They build a "hot box" and keep it warm with a lightbulb.

Here's how. It requires a little do-it-yourselfing.

Find an abandoned dead or dying fridge. Maybe you already have one - there seems to be an endless supply by the side of the road. It's a nice, sturdy, insulated box with a door.

Position the fridge within arms length of the torch, and with the door opening away from the torch. You are going to be leaving the door open while torching.

Take out the shelves. They won't be strong enough for serious amounts of glass. Cut up ABS piping, fabric roll inner cardboard tubes, downspout, fencing post tubes, and stack it inside. Lots of stuff at the home hardware store can be cut to lengths and stacked to sort and store glass. Cut it shorter than the lengths of glass. When it hangs out - it is easier to grab. Be sure the fridge is deep enough to close with the glass rods in it.

You'll need a little electrical knowledge for the next part. You are going to install two light bulbs - in sockets, on a thermostat, in the fridge - the kind of line voltage thermostat as is used for baseboard heaters. (OK - if you have a tiny little heater with a good thermostat - you could use that too.) This appears to be the sort of project that folks who are into electronics immediately say - "oh sure - that's easy." If that's not you, find one and bribe them - glass, beer, chocolate - whatever their price is. You'll want to put the thermostat at the opposite end from the bulbs - so that they don't turn themselves off before the whole thing warms up.

The reason you use two is so that if one burns out - the other one comes on and keeps it warm. This is critical for the resin - but merely inconvenient for glass - so you could skip it. Needless to say - you need to use an incandescent bulb that actually gives off heat - not an energy efficent, no-heat, fluorescent bulb.

So, this is a reversal to the regular fridge, where you use it to keep things cold and the lightbulb goes out when you close the door. You are using it to keep things warm, and the lightbulb stays on. I've been quite boggled at how good this solution has been for keeping the resin warm in the "hangar." Nice and toasty in the fridge, and minus freakin' 30 outside.

You can store your bead release, tools, etc., and other stuff in the door. Nice and handy.

Just a thought.