Handmade Glass Beads

Making Glass Beads: An Overview

The art of creating handmade glass beads is not for the faint of heart! Glass bead artists work with flames that run at temperatures up to 1600 degrees F., with many safety precautions necessary. But those who master the craft of lampwork glass are truly creating tiny works of art that will last well beyond their lifetimes. They can command high prices for a single bead, which can become the focal point of a piece of fine art jewelry.

This post will give you an overview of what is involved in making glass beads using lampworking techniques, which could either educate you as to the value of fine art glass beads or inspire you to give it a try!

In short, a glass bead artist uses a torch to heat glass rods, then winds the molten glass onto a mandrel to create the basic shape of the bead. The artist then melts additional colors of glass to add decorations ranging from frit (ground pieces of glass) to dots, flowers, stringers, or other appendages.

Once the bead is complete, it needs to be annealed, or heated to about 900 degrees F. and slowly cooled. Usually a kiln is used for this process, which will help prevent the glass from cracking. Cheap imported beads may have skipped the annealing stage, which could leave them prone to breaking.

Here is a YouTube video that shows the creation of a simple glass bead that is rolled in frit, which is then melted into the bead:

This video shows how to create a barrel bead decorated with dots:

Future posts in this series will take a closer look at supplies, safety precautions, and further tutorials for creating handmade glass beads. Please reply to this post if you have comments on lampworking or requests for more information.

Tags: glass beads jewelry, lampwork bead, Making Glass Beads

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Making Glass Beads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.