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1. Store each different COE of glass separately.
2. Loose stick of glass without a label? Unless you are absolutely positive what it is, and are willing to risk a day's production on that feeling, toss it in the trash!
3. Sew (or cut) a white towel about 40" long and 16" wide for each COE of glass you use. Lay out one or two rods of each color of that glass, side by side. (In a spectrum, if you are so inclined.) When you are done with that COE, and want to change to a different COE, just roll up the towel with the glass rods still on it, making a Bundle and put rubber bands around each end. Be sure to write the type of glass on the outside edge of the towel with a Sharpie marker. Put it away and unroll the next COE Bundle you will be working with.
4. Use a clean cookie sheet upon which to lay your stringers. Use a different cookie sheet for each COE. Store them separately.
5. Label each rod, especially of borosilicate or exotic glass. Use the packing slip that comes with your order, count how many rods of each color you have, use "Word" on your computer to print out a label for each rod. Use Removable 1/2" x 1 3/4", 80 to a sheet, and wrap them around the end so that they stick to themselves, sticky side together. Wrap them so that you can read them easily, depending upon how you work. You can get them off easily when you get to the end of the rod.
6. Use 1/8" wide rubber bands. They last longer, and don't break as easily, especially after you have bought all of the newest colors. You'll thank me in 5 years, the rubber bands are more likely to be intact, even (or maybe especially) on those colors you haven't used very often.
7. Have water containers on both the left and the right side of your torch and use distilled water if you live in area of hard water. You are less likely to get mineral deposits on your tools.
8. Have 10" tweezers on both the left and the right side of your torch, so you don't reach over the flame, and are ready to pinch off bad glass on the rod, or on the bead.
9. You CAN put your tweezers in the flame. You bought 'em and you can use 'em any way you want.
10. Use the glass that is most suited for your needs. Soft glass is great for encasing and crayon colors. Borosilicate is great for silvered, crystal growing effects. Learn to use it all!
11. With Bullseye Glass, which is slightly shocky, use a hotplate or some other way to preheat your rods. It's more efficient considering the time you will save.
12. With glass that's cheaper than $20 per pound, use right angle hemostats to pick up the little end nubs of glass to melt them in the flame. With glass that's more than $20 per pound, most borosilicate color, take the time to melt the ends together, using every last bit of that expensive glass.
Electric Raspberry Hearts
Please, if you use this, Denise Gaffney-Sander's recipe, be sure to donate at least one (or more) Purple Hearts to the Beads of Courage Project.
13. Pi (3.1416) x Diameter = Circumference
14. The Electric Raspberry Heart requires:
Bullseye Lt. Striker Pink rod or stringer for the base Bullseye Lt. Striker Pink with Silver Dichroic Coating for the first layer of Dichro--1" x 1" Bullseye Neo Lavender with Yellow-Blue Dichroic Coating for the 2nd layer of Dichro--1 1/8" x 1 3/4" Bullseye Neo Lavender with Yellow-Blue Dichroic Coating for the 3rd layer of Dichro--1/2" x 2" Bullseye Glass to decorate as you wish.
15. Use black sharpie to scribble on the glass (not the metallic coating side) so it will be easier to determine which side has the coating. Let it dry.
16. Place the dichroic sheet glass with the metallic coating down to the table, and the clear side up.
17. Dip the cutter in distilled water to lubricate the cut. After the scoring the cut, dip your finger in the distilled water, and apply extra water on the score. Break it, as usual.
18. Place the dichroic pieces on the hot plate the same way every time, with the metallic coating face up. Let it heat up, on hotplate high.
19. Preheat the tweezers in the flame. Pick up the dichro with the hot tweezers. Preheat the dichro at the end of the flame for 30 seconds by the clock.
20. Simultaneously, continue to rotate and heat the base bead in the flame, deflecting the direct flame off of the dichro. Give the base bead one last saturation of heat...
21. ....then touch the dichro to the base bead, and hopefully the base bead is hot enough to adhere to the preheated dichro. Then wait for 7-10 seconds, while the temperature of the two different pieces of glass equalize.
22. Paddle the dichro on the base bead with a rocking, side to side motion, squeezing the melting surface clear top dichroic glass onto the base bead and over the edge of the dichroic coating, hopefully avoiding a burning scum at the edge of the dichro. Try to get this first edge paddled flat, so that if you have extra dichro after you have rolled up the glass, the dichro can just keep winding around the base bead.
23. Try not to stretch the dichroic, so that the metallic layer stays thick and reflective. If you have miscalculated, making the base bead too large or cutting the dichro too short, you can stretch the melted dichro, but when you stretch the glass, you do loose a bit of the concentrated flash of the dichroic coating.
24. Apply the second layer of dichro over the first.
25. When you put the last layer of dichroic glass on, the one that is 1/2" x 2", put it up at one end or the other of the bead, so that you get extra volume at that end, helping to give you the mass that you will need to form a heart shape.
26. Fill any gaps or cover any dichroic edges with either Bullseye Neo Lavender or Lt. Striker Pink rod. Squash, form, then decorate to your heart's content!
Remember, on these Purple Hearts for the Beads of Courage Project, if you write the word, "Brave," on one side.....the brave is only on the outside of the glass heart. These kids are brave through and through.
Borosilicate Twisted Raked Vessel
27. Use a mandrel one increment larger than 1/8". That size will fit a OOO or OOOO cork.
28. Use Super Blue Sludge for this heavily manipulated borosilicate vessel.
29. Use Simex 6 mm Clear for encasing.
30. Use Simex 3 mm for dots and lips of vessels.
31. Use Simex 8 mm for heavy casing. (But not with this particular design.)
32. Smooth it out ring by ring, starting on the right, working to the left, using the flattened cylinder to guide your graphite paddle. Melt and pat into a triangular shaped bar.
33. Layer, then pat:
Paramore Peach--New Color--Glasscraft Clear--the secret of raking is having clear whereever you want visual depth. Exotic Citrus--Momka Lt. Blue Amber Purple--Northstar Stringer--Blue Moon--Northstar
34. Pressing dots into flat cylinders
35. Burning off the haze--
On the rod, as you are applying it to the bead. Before you flatten it. Before you rake it. Before you encase it.
36. Raking--dip the rod that you will rake with into the flame to preheat it a bit so it will leave a tiny trail.
37. Bringing out the silver. First, you burned offf the haze, then go to a reducing flame, having more carbon molecules from the unburned carbon-based fuel, propane. These unburned carbon molecules will partially act as nuclei for the crystals to form around in the striking borosilicate colors.
38. This is also cooler flame, having the correct temperature to allow the larger silica molecules to stop moving, while the smaller, metalic elements float to the surface of the bead.
39. Then, once the silver is deposited upon the bead's surface, return to a neutral flame, but keep the bead behind and slightly under the flame, so that the metal is not burned off again. Case with clear.
40. Try to not get the clear casing over the edges of the Peach motif onto the clear base, so that the surface tension will allow the layers to remain separate.
41. Heating the motifs, go from 3--2--1--2--3, utilizing the residual heat in the bead.
42. Use heat to twist off the bottom of the vessel, using your tweezers.
43. Any unique mold that you can find or fashion makes your work more individual. (Mine has been my "Yami Yogurt Spoon Mashers.")
44. Melt out any chill marks. Chill marks are a sign of poor workmanship, please take time to melt them out. (Unless of course, they are part of the design, as in flower petals, or leaves.)
45. Borosilicate annealing schedule for WYSIWYG:
Hold at 850 F. while working Ramp up to 1050 F. over 30 minutes Hold for 60 min at 1050 F. Ramp down to 850 F. over 1.5 hours
46. Borosilicate annealing schedule for Striking Colors:
Hold at 850 F. while working Ramp up to 1100 F. over 30 minutes Hold for 2.5 hours at 1100 F. Ramp down to 850 F. over 1.5 hours
47. Soak beads in water. Use bench vice to hold mandrel, ease off mandrel using fingers to twist bead.
48. Use strips of rubber jar opener to grip beads resistant to being easily removed.
49. For very thin mandrels, 3/64" (get strongest 3/64" from Aura Lens), support mandrel with fingers on one hand, while simultaneously twisting bead with other hand, so mandrel doesn't bend.
50. Use Mike Frantz $40 motorized bead reamer to clean beads. Get 2 motorized bead reamers, then leave two different bits in place and just change the reamer at the cord. It's much quicker, to change the entire reamer at the cord, and you save wear and tear on the chuck part of the reamer.
51. If your area's water is "hard," high in minerals, do final rinse in distilled water.
52. After dry, use Q-tip to insure all trapped water is out of vessel.
53. Clear "Wet and Wild" Nail Polish on a clean 1/16" mandrel to coat inside with a thin coating of nail enamel.
