| About the Making of Beaded Jewelry |
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| There has been a great rise in beading and the jewelry making arts. With this rise in popularity there has also been a revival in the ancient art of glass beadmaking, more commonly known as lampworking |
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| Lampworking is the art of creating glass beads, vessels or different types of sculpture in the flame of a torch or as in history, an oil lamp. Luckily the day of the oil lamp is passed and flameworkers have a multitude of torches to choose from, such as the single fuel torch or an oxygen/propane, which has a hot, clean flame.
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| A glass bead is formed by melting the tip of a rod of glass and wrapping it around a stainless steel mandrel, which must be turned to keep the glass balanced. Each bead is then shaped and embellished with tiny glass stringers or dots, metal foils or frit, which is ground up glass of other colors.
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| The glass is then flame polished and placed in a small kiln at over 900 degrees to anneal the glass. The annealing process is used to strengthen and remove stress from the glass. The beads are gradually cooled overnight to prevent thermal shock from the hot glass cooling too quickly.
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| For more information about glass beads and lampworking books and resources are listed.
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- Making Glass Beads by Cindy Jenkins
- You Can Make Glass Beads by Cindy Jenkins
- Passing the Flame by Corina Tettinger
- 1000 Glass Beads by Valerie Van Arsdale Schrader and Cathy Finegan
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| The places I visit online are:
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