About My Beads
When you read this, please keep in mind that I am no way expert in making lampwork beads. Having said that, listed here is the way that works for me and how my beads are made.
Mandrels are stainless steel sticks used to wind the molten glass. They are available in various sizes, which determines the hole size of the beads. Most of my beads are made on 1/16 inch mandrels, however, florals and focals are made with 2/33 inch as they require bigger holes.
Mandrels are dipped in Bead Release, which prevents beads from sticking on the mandrel. There are a lot of different brands of bead release available and you can even make your own. However, I found Bucket 'o' Mud to be my favorite. Some bead release is not strong enough (without mentioning the brand name here), which becomes critical, when you are doing a lot of dragging, poking and raking = floral beads! On the other hand, some bead release is very strong and it withstands all of those glass manipulation techniques, but unfortunately the bead doesn't come off the mandrel either! Bucket 'o' Mud is strong, yet the bead is easily removed from the mandrel.
Bead Release can be air or flame dried and I air dry all my mandrels, unless I am making small spacers.
 
Mandrel on left coated with bead release. 100s of mandrels all ready to go!
Glass
I use Italian Moretti Effetre and Vetrofond mainly, but I also use other glass such as American Bullseye and Uroboro, Czech, New Zealand Gaffer, German Laucha, Kugler and Reichenbach. You name it and I've used it! I like having a wide range of colour palette.
Stringers
Once I decide on a bead design, then I sit and pull all the stringers out first. Stringer is the thin glass that is used for all the decorations. For example, glass rods are often too thick to do fine dots or lines, so you need a stringer to do more delicate decorations.
Molten glass has been wound on the mandrel. Once you start to rotate the mandrel at even speed, it becomes round, due to gravity and centrifugal force
Dots are being added on the bead using a thin, stringer
Once beads are made, they are placed in the kiln straight away. The beads can cool down rapidly, and the last thing you want is having them cracked while cooling down! The kiln cools down the beads slowly, while removing the stress built inside the beads. This process is called Annealing.
Cleaning
I don't like dipping mandrels and I don't like cleaning beads either! But you gotta do, what you must do..
I use Dremel that has a diamond tip. Each bead is cleaned one at a time!
Now you get a rough idea how my beads are made! I did not get into a real technical side - all are covered in my class and some will be covered in a 'Plunged Petal' Tutorial (coming soon)
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