Posts Tagged ‘beads’

Tempting fate with a good deed

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

There’s a fantastic organization out there called Beads of Courage (BOC).   As a group, they provide beads to children undergoing surgeries (in many cases, MANY surgeries) as a way to help them cope with the process.

Starting with a string of beads spelling out their name, the children then get beads to mark milestones and procedures.  Go for a blood draw, that’s one type of bead, chemo another, x-rays, heart operations, etc, etc, etc…all stuff distracting kids from the business of growing up and being a kid.

In short, BOC is a group of nice folks.

They rely on donations of beads from bead makers all over the country and world that work in glass, polymer clay, wood, felt, metal, you name it, and when they don’t have enough of a certain type of bead, they have to buy and supplement that type with plastic beads.

Recently I learned that the kids that undergo radiation treatments get glow in the dark beads, and that BOC’s been supplementing with plastic beads.

I’ve decided to do something nice, and I’m making an effort to make 60 glow in the dark beads to send off.   This is a lot of beads for me, since by and large…I don’t do beads.  But I have glow glass, I have mandrels, and doing 10 beads a session isn’t a whole lot when they’re on the smaller (not 1/4″ rod) mandrels.

I think I got 11 in the kiln tonight, so I’m ahead on the next session.

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Set 5 – Bead Chess

Friday, May 7th, 2010

I finally got set five finished!  This was an interesting one because it took about 3 times as long to make the parts for the pieces than to make the actual pieces.

  • 106 beads
  • 32 posts
  • 32 small and medium marbles…sorta (they never get fully formed into a marble
  • 2 hours per side to assemble

I like this set because it’s really kind of mindless to create and construct, realistically it could be a production item for me, and I’m sure I’ll wind up creating a couple others similar to it, especially now that I figured out how to avoid a giant blister on my thumb getting the beads off.

This set’s going to be on my table at stART on the Street: Spring Edition, but if it doesn’t sell will be up on my Etsy and Artfire sites soon afterwards.  If you love it, are regional, and want to avoid shipping costs, come on out to visit on May 16th.   I’ll likely price it a few dollars less than I’ll list it for, so take advantage!

Each of the pieces has beads on it that spin freely.  Rather than go for intricate details, the piece is identifiable by the number of beads on it.   (2 for pawns, 3 for rooks, 7 for the king, etc.).

I’m still working on the case for this set, and I can’t guarantee that this will be the final board that it will come with.

Group shot

Group Shot

Black side

Black side

White side

White side

Group shot

Group shot

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The thumb saver

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Recently I’ve been working on a new chess set that requires a whole lot of spacer beads made on a 1/4″ steel rod.  Not really being a bead maker, I never realized all the work that goes into getting those stupid things off the rods.   I’ve done it in the past, usually with smaller diameter mandrels, but still, it’s not my thing.

When I started twisting these off the rod, I wound up with a nasty blister on my right hand thumb from where I was gripping the beads.  ”There’s gotta be a better way!”

Well, there is, and it cost me about 2 minutes of my time.

I took a plain old pair of pliers, wrapped the jaws in electrical tape, and voila, non marring gripping power.   Lock the rod in a bench vice (I use a piece of copper tubing to help crank it down tighter) and there you go.

I tried it, and of the 15 beads I made last night, I only lost three; 2 were crushed, one was got messed up a bit because of some crud on the steel rod.      Not bad really, and my thumb’s fine!

There’s a little bit of black residue on the beads from the tape, but it wipes right off and should come clean when I clean the bead release out of them.

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Fusion vs Foster Fire

Friday, April 30th, 2010

I’ve got a few years under my belt with glass, but when it comes to beads, I’m still a bit of a newbie.   There are plenty of reasons for this; there are a lot of (really talented) folks that make beads already, an ugly import flood those folks are up against, and frankly they just never interested me.  I make a few from time to time, but they’re not an every day thing for me.

I’ve undertaken a project that involves me making a LOT  of spacer beads on 1/4″ rod so I’ve had the opportunity to learn how much I hate prying beads off of the rods.

For those who don’t make them, you coat your mandrel with something called bead release.   It’s a liquid material, like clay slip, you dip in that then dries on the metal rod and creates a breakable barrier between the glass and the metal.   This way you can get the bead off.   In theory.

See, bead release has a problem, it’s clay like by nature.   So if it over dries you risk it cracking and your bead freely rotating while you’re working on it.   If it breaks you also risk the glass adhering to the metal, and it won’t come off without some percussive intervention.   Much like deodorant, folks have their preferences for which bead release works best for the way they work, they glass they use, the humidity of their climate, the phase of the moon, etc, etc etc.   I tend to lean towards Foster Fire’s Tough and Smooth when I use it.   It’s designed for the higher temperatures used with borosilicate.

The problem is, it’s not a perfect material.   There isn’t a perfect one really, it’s a closest approximation at best.    Once you find you like, then you have to decide if you dip once or twice, flame dry or air dry,  it’s a bit crazy, but it’s a necessary insanity.

Anyway…recently I was complaining about getting the beads off of the metal rods.  I had made 36 of them, and I managed to get them all off, but some put up a fight.   My wonderful friends made their suggestions for which releases they like, and several of them mentioned Fusion bead release.   One person in particular was kind enough to send me a sample to try.

I have to say, I wasn’t terribly thrilled.   Of the twenty beads I made, 12 of them are now awaiting the hammer.  It dipped nicely and dried well, but it didn’t take the temperature as well and it cracked a lot easier than my Foster Fire.   Plus the loss rate was unacceptable.    On the upside, they weren’t terribly complicated, and the glass I’m using is one of the more inexpensive ones.   It was a learning experience.

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