HOLLOW BEAD PROJECT

     I have a fun project for us to play with. I’ve been having fun with hollow beads and have come up with some fun stuff. We all have tried the hollow bead and some of you, I suspect, are far ahead of me, but I want to share some insights I’ve had. The first part of this paper is about building a good round hollow bead with puckers. The second part is the different shapes I’ve been working on using the round hollow bead as a departure point. The two shapes I’ll present are the Hollow Pillow bead and the Flying Hot Wedgie!

     The hollow bead is made by joining two disks together and allowing the trapped air to expand it from the inside. Some bead makers make cones and others make disks. I prefer disks since I can better control the wall thickness. I make my disks by first making a very small spacer bead and then wrapping the disk. This little bead grips the mandrel tightly and is a good hub for the disk. Each layer is pressed against the cooler previous layer, which serves to make the disk wide and thick rather than like a rope coiled on edge. This thick walled disk produces a thick walled hollow bead that won’t “blow out” at a thin spot. When I bring the two disks together I don’t let them touch. I bring them to within 1/8 inch of each other and then seam them together by adding glass very carefully into the open space. If you just push the disks together, there might be an area that is very thin that could blow out later. You’ll need to work out two things to get a round hollow bead rather some type of oval. The distance between the two disks is determined first and then the height of the disk is adjusted to get a round bead.

     The round hollow bead that forms by expanding air pressure from within will have NO puckers. To gain puckers, first allow the bead to cool a little and harden. Then set the mandrel on a slope and focus the heat on half of the bead and allow the glass to droop down the mandrel to form a natural pucker. DON"T return the mandrel to level UNTIL the glass has hardened and set the pucker! If you don’t wait, the glass will retract and the pucker will be lost. Do the other side the same way.

     The Pillow bead is a tablet bead formed from a hollow bead. A round hollow bead produces an oval tablet shape. One important thing to remember is to not press the tablet too thin. You do not want the inside wall to stick to the MANDREL. If the bead had fine puckers before pressing the tablet, it will still have fine puckers! When the bead is pressed, the flat surfaces will have chill marks that will need to be fired away. If the bead had been a solid bead you would simply fire the flat surfaces until the chill marks smooth out. With a hollow tablet you can gain a beautiful curvature to the flat surfaces by continuing to heat them until they “Puff up” from inside! Do one side and WAIT until it hardens and then do the other side.

     The Flying Hot Wedgie is a hollow tablet bead that has a number of flat planes that form wedge shapes produced with the paddle. I’ve posted some examples for you to study. To make a flat plane anywhere on a tablet bead you only have to place a “puddle of heat” where you want to develop a flat plane. This will let you work anywhere on the bead without the entire bead being to loose.

     Have fun with this project and stay on center unless you want to try the Flying Hot Wedgie! James Smircich

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