Hollow Blowouts
or some not terribly helpful tips:
Okay, I need to write a proper tutorial. Unfortnately, as with so much else, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Thus:
- though you should still only rotate the mandrel as fast as you have to in order to get the job done, that will be faster than with a solid bead.
- Try to lay the coils down evenly, so the wall thickness is consistant.
- Don't focus the flame on one spot!
- Use as bushy a flame as the glass will permit when `rounding up' hollows
- For some very disk-shaped beads, heat slowly and let the hole close; you'll lose some volume, but the bead will be nicely round, and the thicker walls will `pop' less
If the bead does pop, and you don't want to lose any more volume (that is, its length to width aspect ratio is one or greater), you can try patching it, either by nudging the lips of the hole closed with tweezers, or wiping on a hot glass patch. Heat slowly! More often than not, another hole will blowout right next to your patch, which is very annoying. This is why I often heat slowly, let the hole close (especially if I'm doing complicated patterns that would distorted, like twisted dots), flatten the mess and make a fish or heart bead.
Or I open the hole up. Someday I will string a bunch of these `holepops'; as a bead*stringer* I think they have wonderful potential, even if they violate my bead*making* sensibilities.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 2008 sylvus tarn.
