Take Two Reflection

My station - ready to do some bead making!

This is my reflection post for our second day of experimenting with glass bead making.

My focus this time was to continue practicing different shapes and designs, including replicate at least one viking glass bead bead from one of the sources we have been looking at. I also wanted to successfully make some stringers, as my attempt last time failed miserable.

I tried my hand at making spiral beads, which I had not tried last time. I was fairly successful, but none of them turned out perfect. It was really hard to control the glass rod enough to create a consistent spiral. On my first one, I also made the mistake of going over the end of the mandrel and I was very lucky that I was able to push the glass back (using tools and gravity). These are my attempts:

1st attempt - Purple Spiral Bead

2nd attempt - Purple Spiral Bead

3rd attempt - Blue Spiral Bead

I was able to make three successful 'replica' beads, but these were very simple in design:

Green with yellow dots Round Bead

Green Ring Bead

Blue Round Bead

I found it really hard to recreate a more complicated design, and my attempt is not very good. I tried to do a black cylindrical bead with white dots and a cross (X) pattern between each dot. My lines were not very good, I found it really hard to control the glass rod enough to make a straight line that was perfectly placed, and I also had a problem with the lines staying, as they had a tendency to 'melt' in the centre and create two dots at the beginning and end of what was suppose to be a line.

One line made it, but the other 'melted' to the sides

I was more successful at making stringers. I attempted two separate processes. The first way was one I had attempted at our last session. I took two rods of the same colour (yellow) and pushed them together until they formed a 'ball' in the centre. I was then able to pull this ball until I had a very long yellow stringer. This was great, because we did not have any yellow stringers available, so we were all able to then use the yellow stringer for detail work.

Yellow stringer in front, can see original rod
(with part of stringer which broke off) in back

(Jensen, 1991, pg 38)

The second way I made stringers actually came from The Vikings of the Ribe by Stig Jensen (left). I used a steel mandrel without the clay solution on it, coated it in one colour and then created two lines with another colour. After this was fused together, I took the glass out of the flame and attached a stainless steel pick (not a tweezer like is shown in the example because I did not have one on hand), which stuck to the glass. I pulled the glass while twisting the mandrel. This created a spiral pattern. As I pulled, the glass became harder to pull until it broke off at the origin (see pictures to the right). 

I tried blue & white (like is shown in the example) as well as green, black & blue (right) to try the technique will more than two colours.

I then attempted to recreate the bead shown in the example (left, top of the picture). This was not very successful. I tried three different attempts, but none of them fully turned out.

Here is a video of me making a blue & white stringer, then attempting to recreate the bead. This was my first attempt of the stringer and the bead. You can see a picture of the finished bead below ("1st attempt" beads).

These are the beads I made with the blue & white stringers:

1st attempt - from top

1st attempt - from side

2nd attempt

3rd attempt

These are all of the beads I made:

As you can see, like last time, not all of them made it intact. I tried another rectangle bead and two round beads with dot designs (one of them a flower design with the dots), which all broke in half as we were taking them off the mandrel.

I think this time around I was very successful at making stringers, which is really great. I was also able to get more comfortable with dots, but I am still really bad at lines. This is definitely a craft that requires a lot of practice before one become really good. I have enjoyed making glass beads though, so going forward, I think I will continue to make beads and hopefully get better!