Take One Reflection

This is my reflection on our first glass bead making session. This was not my first time making beads, I had actually gone in September on my own to take a class. This was great, because it meant that I already had the basic knowledge of what we were going to be doing. But, because this time I was actually going with this project on my mind, I was able to noticed and reflect on things that I was not able to the first time.

Clockwise: Square bead (black with white and blue eye designs); Stringer attempt (black & white); Segmented with collar bead (white and purple); Round bead (blue with white dots); 'Flower' bead (black); Segmented bead (broken) (blue & clear)

One of the things that really stood out to me was that the beads making process is very time consuming and requires a lot of patience. First you have to make sure the glass rod is heated properly, which takes time, then once the glass is on the mandrel it takes time for the shape to come together. If you try and rush it, the glass can shatter and the shape and design can be affected. Even the simplest bead shape takes time and patience. I did find myself rushing, and I believe that shows in my beads - they were not as good as they could have been. Because of the time involved in shaping each bead, it can also be very tiring, especially for the hand and arm. I found that I was resting my arm on the table a lot and had to switch hands frequently.

Segmented with collar

I tried many different shapes and designs this time around, to try and practice my technique. I attempted these shapes: round, cylinder, segmented, segmented with collar, ‘flower’, triangle, square, and rectangle.

I also attempted to do some designs on the beads, mostly consisting of dots, and creating eye designs - which is having a dot within a dot. When it comes to designs of any kind, from dots to lines, it takes a steady hand, and there is not a lot of room for mistake (if you want to make a ‘perfect’ design).

Cylinder with eye design and sticking-up dots

Not all of them made it through the cooling process, as you can see some shattered when they were cooling (above the clear and blue segmented bead was made as one bead, the bead broke in two parts when cooling). This happens when the outside of the glass cools too fast. There is a process called annealing, which the Vikings practiced, where the bead is cooled at a very slow rate. The Vikings did this process by keeping the glass beads on the edge of the furnace. Today the beads are put in a kiln. We do not have access to a kiln though, so we cannot replicate this process. Instead we use a fiberglass blanket, but that does not always insure a slow cooling process.

I also attempted to make my own stringer (below) made of two colors. This is done by heating two colors and pressing them together. You press until you have a 'ball' of glass, then take it out of the flame and slowly pull one side. The glass should stretch apart - almost like melted cheese but the 'string' is firmer. As you can see from my attempt, it broke before it stretched very far.

Attempted stringer

In all, this experience was really great. It allowed me to further practice my bead making techniques and I was able to reflect on some of the struggles I had - mainly with patience :) I look forward to the next experiment, and making more beads.

Beadmaking: Experiment One

My Collection of Beads

 Above you can see all of the beads that I made during our first beadmaking session. My goal for the first session was to make a segmented bead. In addition, I made several other shapes of beads including circular, swirl, melon, and conical. The designs that I recreated included dots, eyes, and stripes. As a group we experimented with both Viking shapes and designs.

A segmented bead is a long bead that looks like two, three, even four beads stuck together. You can see my version on the top right of the above photo.I tried different techniques to make a segmented bead, because the research we have done as a group does not describe how to achieve each shape. At first I tried making two beads side by side, which is the bead above. I found it challenging to join the two beads together perfectly as I had put them too far apart. I also tried another technique, where I made the bead with small pick tool, but the shape was not as defined. I smoothed this bead, and created a long bead instead (photo to be added soon). I found from my teammates that another good technique would be to use a big pick tool.

Melon Bead

I also experimented making the melon shape, which was my most successful bead. At first I tried to drag the tip of the small pick tool into the glass in order to draw lines. Then I realized that it would be better to press the lines into the bead instead.

Circular Multi-coloured Broken Bead with Reticella Design

I found that unfortunately, the majority of my beads had broken. One of the main reasons for this is that the beads cooled down too quickly. For our next attempt this coming week, I am going to be especially careful at cooling my beads. I think that my mistake was not putting them under the fiber blanket soon enough. You're suppose to wait approximately thirty seconds before putting them in so that they don't stick to the blanket, but I might wait twenty seconds instead to see if that helps.

Left: Striped Circular Bead; Right: Circular Bead with Eye Decoration

The eye decoration was very difficult to execute because I had to be so precise. The way I replicated the design was by first applying one row of dots, and I smoothed out the dots by keeping the bead in the heat until the dot was flat. Then I added smaller dots in a different colour ontop of the previous white dots, and I smoothed them out as well.

I learned a lot from our first experiment. It was very important to be patient with the glass, as going too quickly would result in the glass being applied in a wrong spot, or cooling down too quickly. 

Reflection- The Bead Making Process

Much to my surprise, the glass bead production process was far easier than anticipated, allowing for the creation of 14 individual beads varying in size, shape, pattern, and color within the allotted 3 hours our group was scheduled for (Examples of which is shown in the images above).

 

Throughout the process, I intended to test how well and in what ways different colored glass adheres to the other, noting afterwards that the cracking and shattering of 4 of my beads was most often at the point of union between 2 (or more) colors. In reflection of their construction, I am able to draw notable reminders for our next visit to the workshop:

1)   Molten glass distribution must be evenly and slowly melted onto the mandrel. This is to avoid pulling the glass against the mandrel, which may lead to bubbles and the cracking of the protectant clay.

2)   In combining glass colors, the bead must be held within the heat of the flame to ensure secure adhesion of one color of molten glass to the other.

3)   When producing embellishments, such as a risen spiral on the outer portion of the bead, consider pressing the decoration slightly into the bead while molten. When cooled, the embellishment will be less prone to popping off, as it will be less raised from the bead surface.

4)   Black glass is prone to melting faster than other colors.

5)   White glass has the tendency to burn more obviously than other colors, turning a rather undesirable yellowish-brown. Thus, when combining colors with white, it often takes the longer time in a cooler area of the flame.

6)   The development of straight lines (whether it be in a design or the actual shape of the bead) is extremely difficult. Straight lines require attention to detail, a greater amount of time working the glass, and a sturdy hand.  Unfortunately, my intended quadratic bead looks more like an unusually warped blob.

7)   Keep all metal tools away from the flame so to keep cool. A warm tool creates a surface to which the molten glass can stick, rather than being shaped. This is a mess best not dealt with.

8)   When using stringers to achieve a dotted design, allow the stringer to melt thoroughly into a rounded bulb and drop onto the bead on its own for a perfect circle shape. Pressing the stringer onto the bead when it is not fully molten creates a more spikey or misshaped design.

   

I’m inclined to say my most successful beads were the black-and-white segmented and heart pattern beads, both of which took the longest to produce out of all 14 beads. My main conclusion; bead crafting is certainly not for those who like to rush! 

Reflections on Beadmaking

The pictures to the right and left show the final products of my efforts in our first beadmaking attempt. The number of beads I made is small (only seven), but I was lucky enough to have all of my beads survive the cooling process intact. If the glass cools too quickly, often from being left out of the fire too long before being placed in the fibre blanket, it will shatter or crack. I was pleased to find that after removal from the mandrel, all of my beads survived. The process of making beads was illuminating and I encountered a number of issues and difficulties while making them. Below I will provide pictures of each bead, and explain what issues I faced with each.
Note: The photos use lined paper to indicate scale. At the time of photography, we did not have an actual ruler handy and so made use of the resources available to us. The spaces between the lines equal 1 cm.

These are the first two beads I made. I wanted to begin with making a simple ring-shaped bead, with, what I thought would be, a simple wavy design (also called thread decorating). The bead on the right was my first attempt. First, melting the glass rod appropriately so that it does not split off onto your mandrel, resulting in half melted and half solid glass being stuck to it, is a learning experience in and of itself, and this took me awhile to get control of. Second, melting the glass and applying it to the mandrel is pretty difficult, and I struggled with getting the right taffy-like consistency that enabled you to easily apply the glass to the mandrel. I think my problem was that I did not melt enough glass to allow me to spin it onto the mandrel for more than a half turn before it got too stiff to apply. Thus, just getting the glass onto the mandrel was difficult for me. The actual bead shape was not very difficult to achieve, as spinning the glass in the flame seems to provoke a natural tendency for this shape. However, the wavy design was difficult. I could not even get a nice thin layer of stringer glass onto the bead, never-mind make that thin layer wavy. As you can see, my second attempt on the left resulted in one area that is kind of wavy on the bottom, but again I struggled with thickness.

This is a melon bead. I initially attempted to make it as my second bead, but failed and made the second ring-shaped bead above instead. Re-melting glass is quite easy and so I found myself often doing this when I was not happy with the end product of an attempt. I used the sharp tip of a metal tool for my first attempt at a melon bead.  I attempted to drag lines into a ring-shaped bead, but found that it merely pulled the glass in one direction instead of creating an indent. Rose discovered that if you impress the side of this metal tool into the glass, it leaves pretty nice lines. So this bead was made using that technique, which works pretty well! You can also use the end of a putty-knife like tool to impress indents as well. This bead illustrates one other difficulty I encountered. As shown, the glass comes to a bit of a peak on top, rather than laying flat and this is due to my glass application. If it was not applied evenly, even melting it continuously would not fix this 'peaking' issue. Attempting to push the glass back into the bead with a metal tool resulted in clay from the mandrel getting pushed into the glass, also shown above as the small white line extending into the bead.

This bead is my first attempt at making a cylindrical bead shape, which is supposed to have flat edges. This bead probably highlights best the difficulties I have with flat edges and pushing the mandrel clay into the glass haha. Its fairly terrible. I have since attempted to get some of the clay off the bead. I managed to remove only a little bit after scrubbing with a toothbrush and warm water. One thing our group is going to look at in the future is cleaning methods. None of the sources we have come across so far have mentioned anything, but hopefully we can find one that does.

This bead was my first successful wave design attempt. It was also my second attempt at making a cylindrical bead shape. The shape was a semi-success only (although better than my first) as the ends are supposed to be completely flat, and as you can see, mine are kind of rounded and peaked on the left end. Getting a flat edge is extremely difficult for me. I kept pushing clay into the glass (again), and I just could not seem to get a clean line. The thread decorating was more successful. I found the quicker I moved with applying the stringer, the cleaner the line became. This was not super easy though, because again, I struggled with the optimal length of time to leave the stringer in the fire. Finally, I applied a clear coat of glass to this bead once the design was complete. This was fairly easy as continuously rotating the glass in the fire evened out the coat. Clear coats of glass usually appear on Viking foiled glass beads, but I wanted to see how difficult it would be.

This bead was supposed to be a square. However, I applied too much glass to the mandrel and could not for the life of me make it a square. Again I struggled with clean edges. By this time I found that my fingers were locking up a little bit. I have problems with my joints on a regular basis, so holding a thin mandrel and constantly rotating it definitely took its toll on my hands. I ended up switching the hands I used to rotate quite often near the end.

This was my final bead attempt. It is a segmented bead with thread decoration (spiral design). Again you can see the issues I was having with the end peaking. Other than that though, it ended up being a decent attempt. A segmented bead, while looking very difficult, was not too hard. By the time I attempted one, other people in the group had already experimented with it and found ways that worked best for them. Two methods were attempted: 1) applying two separate beads onto the mandrel 2) applying a larger quantity of glass onto the mandrel and indenting it with a metal tool. I tried both ways. I found that applying two separate beads was not optimal, and so I added more glass so I could melt both together. I then rotated it to make a ring-shape and indented it with a putty knife-like tool. This seemed to work much better for me. Applying the stringer glass resulted in my most successful attempt, and with more practice I should get even better at it (ideally anyway).

So, that sums up my first attempt at beadmaking. My biggest difficulties were with applying the glass and getting clean, flat edges. Another issue I encountered was the pain it caused in my joints. This is definitely not a job for someone who has arthritis!!

Experimental Archaeology: Modern and Ancient Tool and Material Use

For this week we were assigned to look at other experimental archaeology projects done by our classmates. Some of these projects include Viking metallurgy, nalbinding, mead brewing, and cooking meat. One of our challenges that we encountered with our experiment was not being able to use authentic Viking material and tools, which we addressed in our last post. We found that while we did not have access to these resources, we could still achieve the same results with modern tools. It is useful to note the discrepancies between our tool use and Viking tool use in order to be aware of any possible differences in outcomes.

We noticed that a lot of our classmates had the same challenge with not having access to Viking materials and tools:

The nalbinding group bought needles and wool, and they are not using 100% wool for practicing. The other nalbinding 101 group bought wool and used a drill to make the holes in the needles they made from wood. The metallurgy group used a modern lighter, which is comparable to our use of a propane torch. The mead and meat group used a modern plastic jug and a modern stainless steel grater.

We have all modified our materials and tools slightly, but we have not changed the fundamental process of the experiments. Therefore, these experiments are as authentic as they can be under the circumstances of a time and resource restraint.

-Angela, Emma, Krista, & Rose

Take One

On Saturday, October 19 we began our first attempt at bead making at a local glass studio. Prior to our arrival we researched different kinds of Viking glass bead shapes, colours, and designs by reading various articles and watching several YouTube videos. We intended to mimic, to the best of our abilities, the techniques and materials used by the Vikings. However, due to time and material constraints, we knew that there would be some discrepancies. Here is a video of Viking bead making at Ribe with the appropriate clay furnace and traditional methods (the commentary is not in English, sorry!):



Here is another short video showing bead making over an open clay furnace (this is exactly how we made our beads, except with a torch):



The main difference between traditional Viking bead making and our approach is our use of torches instead of a clay furnace. This is due to time constraints, as making a clay furnace would be an experiment in and of itself and none were readily available for us to use. Other minor discrepancies include the composition of the clay we utilized, our use of stainless steel mandrels instead of iron mandrels, and our cooling process. Vikings would have cooled beads by annealing them, which involves keeping the beads in the front of the furnace to cool slowly over many hours. This would prevent the beads from cracking and would also strengthen them (Renart 2013). Other than these differences, we have mimicked as closely as possible the techniques and materials used by the Vikings. 

 

Viking bead shapes from Gotland, Sweden.
Carlsson 1997. 

We booked the studio from 10am to 1pm. The studio provided all the tools, including: a propane torch, wood block and clamp, a 5mm glass block (to set the hot glass rods on), clay coating (bead release), safety glasses, stainless steel mandrels (varying in size), a fibre blanket, a BBQ lighter, various shaping tools, glass rods, and glass stringers [see pictures below].

This session was dedicated to gaining familiarity with the materials, techniques, and Viking bead shapes and designs. We used examples of Viking bead shapes found in Gotland (Left) and Ribe to try and make during this first session. We also experimented with simple designs, such as dots and lines. Our next session will focus on replicating examples of Viking beads encountered in our research.

Our process was as follows: 

1. We began by preparing the mandrels, dipping them in the clay bead release. The bead release we used is called "Super Blue Sludge" and it acts as a clay barrier between the glass and steel mandrel. We then had to wait approximately 10 minutes for the clay to dry.
2. While the clay dried we chose our glass rods and stringers (smaller glass rods, often used for design work), trying to base our colours on common Viking bead colours. 
3. We then turned on the propane torches, using a BBQ lighter.
4. We began the actual bead making by heating the clay mixture on the mandrel by passing it through the flame a few times until the clay turned brownish in colour.
5. Next we heated the glass rod by passing it through the upper part of the flame in a downward- diagonal motion several times. We heated approximately 5-6 inches of the glass rod to avoiding cracking. 
6. Once properly heated, we kept the end of the glass rod in the upper part of the flame, rotating until a nice bulb formed at the end of the rod.
7. Once properly melted, we held the mandrel horizontally beneath the flame and dropped the molten glass onto the mandrel, ensuring that we spun the mandrel for even distribution. Glass was ready to be put on the mandrel when it had a taffy-like consistency, if it was not properly melted, it would not stick to the mandrel.
8. When the desired amount of glass was on the mandrel, we utilised various methods and tools to achieve our desired shapes and designs. When shaping and applying designs to the beads, we ensured the bead was not in the flame, but underneath it. However, to prevent the glass from cooling too much, we had to periodically re-heat the bead.
9. After the bead shape and design had been achieved, we pulled the bead out of the flame to let it cool for 30 seconds. It was then placed in the fibre blanket to cool for several hours.
10. Once the bead was cooled, it was slipped off the mandrel. This concluded the bead making process.

Here are some of the materials we used:

Glass Rods and Stringers

Shaping Tools and Lighters

Clay Bead Release and Mandrel

Propane Torch, Wood Block, Glass Block, Clamp, Safety Glasses and Fiber Blanket

Mandrels Dipped in Clay Bead Release

Here is a video of us attempting to make Viking beads:




Some photos of us making the beads:

Some of our finished beads:

 Our next bead making session will take place on Saturday, November 2. 

Bibliography

CARLSSON, D. 1997, Viking Beads from Gotland, Sweden. Scribd. Available: http://
www.scribd.com/doc/8493824/VikingBeads [Oct 6, 2013].

RENART, HL, 09/21/2013, Glass Beads of the Viking Age, Barony of the Dragon’s Laire.
Available: http://www.dragonslaire.org/articles/Viking_Beads_research.pdf [Sept 21, 2013]


-Angela, Emma, Krista, & Rose

The Beginning . . .

 

http://jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/about-jorvik/gallery/

 
This blog will follow four Anthropology students (Angela, Emma, Krista and Rose) as we experiment on Viking Age glass beads for our Archaeology class, Anth 398: Life and Death in the Viking World.

This project will focus on researching Viking Age glass bead technology and methods, then going out and making our own glass beads. 

http://www.historyextra.com/vikings 

Glass beads served a variety of purposes including ornamental, trade, display of status, and possibly even as currency (Carlsson, 1997; Tvauri, 2012, pp. 148-149). Glass beads were labour intensive to make, and the materials were almost exclusively imported, making them an expensive item. 



Viking craftsmen imported glass rods, or used glass shards from items that broke during transport, to form beads in clay furnaces. Evidence for glass beads can be found in the form of glass beads in various stages of manufacture, finished bead jewellery, and raw material (glass rods and shards) ( Graham-Campbell, 1980, p. 102; Jensen, 1991, p.37). 

http://www.kaupang.uio.no/gamle-sider/dokumenter/aarsb_2000/kap3_III.htm

Glass beads are commonly found in graves, and in fact beads are one of the most common items found in pre-Christian Viking Age graves. There have also been workshops excavated, for example in HelgÖ and Ribe (Dubin, 1987, p. 37).

As part of our project, we have come up with three research questions that we will attempt to answer through research and experimentation. 

Our three questions are:

1. What techniques and materials were used throughout the Viking Age in the production of glass beads? And, in what ways do modern bead production techniques and materials reflect and/or differ?
2. How much effort is used in the manufacture of different beads (ranging from simple to elaborate in design and shape)?
3. What degree of manual dexterity is required to make beads? Can just anyone do it, or would you be required to have relatively good health?

We plan to conduct our first glass bead making session on Saturday October 19, 2013 at a local glass workshop. Will will update this blog after with the results of our experimentation. 

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/vikbeads.shtml

Bibliography

CARLSSON, D. 1997, Viking Beads from Gotland, Sweden. Scribd. Available: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8493824/VikingBeads [Oct 6, 2013].

DUBIN, L. S., 1987. The History of Beads, from 30,000 B.C. to the present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

GRAHAM-CAMPBELL, J., 1980. The Viking World. New Haven, NY:  Ticknor & Fields.

JENSEN, S. 1991. The Vikings of Ribe. Ribe: Den antikvariske Samling.

TVAURI, A., 2012. Handicrafts and Early Industry. In: TVAURI, A., The Migration Period, Pre-Viking Age, and Viking Age in Estonia. Estonia: Tartu University Press, pp. 113-218.  


-Angela, Emma, Krista, & Rose