{idate}21jan07 {cdate}20jan07 {tags}glassbeads, {#indextags}Tags,Indexes,Subindexes, {indexof}bubbles,transparent_minihollows, {thumb}GlassBeads/2007bubble4870crop.jpg {summary}A return to an old idea---my earliest hollow style of bead, a "plain transparent hollow, aka the `soap bubble',". Originally posted 20jan07 {crop}GlassBeads/2007bubble4870crop.jpg {crop_title}bubble beads, aka plain transparents hollows {#crop_target} {iprc}Beads, it turns out, can adorn all sorts of interesting things beside jewelry. People put them on their flatware and lamps and other home furnishings; on their clothing, of course; even on their livestock. {ip}You've no doubt heard, particularly when frustrated hackers are discussing large businesses that are failing to change with the times, about the old analogy of buggy whip makers. Buggy-whip makers, so the saying goes, should not have their industry specially protected when automobiles become the defacto form of transportation. Now, as it turns out, there is a world of difficulty with the assumptions underlying that statement, but how were the early auto owners to guess that by by making the switch from no longer having to deal with transportation that needed to be fueled constantly, used or not, and which created huge amounts of waste, not to mention suffering from a variety of ailments that they were letting themselves in for a whole other set of problems, such as global climate change, noise and tailpipe pollutants, traffic jams, suburban sprawl (and attendant highway eyesores, like billboards) not to mention a death toll that wouldn't tolerated from any other human activity, excepting perhaps warfare? {ip}In fact a few early nay (or neigh) sayers *did* complain about the noise, pollution, and safety issues, but most people were too busy rushing to a brave new world. ---In point of fact, I don't think (and indeed do not desire) to return to the days of horse and buggies. But that's not to say whip-making skills, nor even fancy-tack making skills, have been lost. But like many other technologies of the type, the attendant costs for functional items has gone up as economies of scale have diminished, and the real money to be made is to be found in lovingly crafted versions---indeed the modern stuff is taken to outstanding levels as a much higher proportion of people buying it are lavishing disposable income on an avocation, as opposed to merely purchasing an everyday tool. {ip}Much as SCA and other recreationists are keeping armory alive, there is a whole slew of folks preserving all *sorts* of leather and rope craft. Whip-cracking is evidently a sport in Australia, and some time back I encountered a whip-making site---maybe via "boingboing" or "whipup". I thought it mildly intersesting, but it looked like a relatively straightforward form of braiding over a core (which I gather is traditionally done with the square, or kakudai, rather than round marudai, for reasons not at all obvious to me) and didn't really think about it. {ip}However, recently I was sent a link to a site for "fancy horse tack" that incorporated similar leather braiding techniques, and a bit of poking about thereafter convinced me that leather-braiding differs from the kumi I've done in a couple of important ways: one, as I mentioned is that it's usually braided over a core. Two, it's braided exclusively with the hands. Some components, such as the three-dimensional plaited sleeves (turk's heads?) used to cover loose ends, and which basically are large-holed beads are woven, apparently using a technique more like tapestry needleweaving than braiding, which would make using a loom difficult. {ip}No doubt some braid expert like Peter Collingwood has thoroughly explored the relationship between kumi and this style of braiding, but the latter is new to me, and quite interesting. The books offered at the horse-tack site are a tad on the expensive side, so I wondered if there would be some basic information on the web itself, and sure enough, there was. For tutorials on the types of braiding done around a whip-handle or similar core, I found this BSDM site (they evidently happen to like fancy-made whips and good quality leather ``tack'' too;) to be most helpful, as it has "extensive photographs illustrated with color-coded shoelaces" to illustrate several of the basic techniques. The site also offers a number of helpful tips for working with leather. {ip}(Btw, this site, or at least the tutorial section, is quite pragmatic in tone, [and appearance, aside from a rather ugly barbed wire footer I didn't like because it offended my sense of attractive web design, not because BSDM fails to do anything for me] which just goes to show that all those odd people, for whatever your definition of weird is, that we tend to think are so different from us have much the same concerns, such as making good quality things, and keeping costs down.) {ip}It wasn't a very far step from leather braiding to nautical knots, in part because the line dividing knots from weaving is pretty blurred; knots are just weaving in which as little as one thread crosses over and under itself, after all. Both leather braiding and nautical knotting use the turk's heads and similar woven cylinders to finish off. The first really good site I found is unfortunately "difficult to read" except at very small font sizes, but eventually I found another, ostensibly "for boy scouts" (which given the homophobic stance of the parent org, I was glad indeed to see the disclaimer that it is *not* an official site) which has a number of excellent tutorials. One thing I really like is that you can turn the animations off, and just see the images as a non-moving sequence---much better for people who learn as slowly as I do. {ip}So there you have it, a series of the links I found most helpful in several hours of surfing this morning. For those of you folk who are uncomfortable with the idea of using leather (legitimate, in my view, as I understand cows and other meat animals from which much leather is harvested as a by-product are not only kept in horrid conditions, but are coming close to matching transportation as a source of global climate change) I should note that there are people out there using other types of flat, ribbon type cord to make their horse tack---unfortunately, I think I found that link using Konqueror, and don't know how to access the link history, sigh. Oh, though I may've mentioned it before, here's *the* classic, if no longer updated "knot" site, which I admit has strayed rather far from the original discussion, but it's so thorough and has so many useful links I felt I might as well throw it in. {ip}And, oh yes, "here is a new/old style of bead" that would be ideal for showing off your beautiful braided cord... {#b} {h1}Soap Bubbles {h2}What goes around, comes around {public} {p}When I started making hollow beads, roughly a decade ago, I made simple glass globes, just as a solid-bead maker starts out with spacer beads. I quickly began to add trailing, such as dots, to my creations; my original soap bubbles, as Page called them, had uneven walls and often were stringcutters into the bargain. They *needed* decorations to cover up my manufacturing flaws. {icap}2007bubble4870.jpg {cap}Assortment of plain hollow `bubbles', ranging from roughly 8--24mm hole to hole. Assorted soda-lime glasses, Jan 2007. {p}Well, here it some number of years later, and though I still make bad ones, the good ones, like those depicted here, make up an acceptable percentage of my efforts. Retail pricing is as follows: {ul}less than 10mm: $11.00ea 10--13mm: $9.00 14--17mm: $11.00 18--23mm: $17.00 24+: please enquire {p}Measurements are made hole to hole. Some of under 10mm sizes may be built on smaller mandrels, and beads 20mm or larger are easier to make on 3/32 but unless stated otherwise, beads are made on 1/16'' mandrels. (All the beads above were made on 1/16.) I use a thin coating of release, so that should be close to the actual size of the hole. If you have other questions concerning purchase, please see the "pricing schedule". {p}file originally created 20jan07