After waiting too long for one Company to fullfill my order for a torch, I phoned Tuffnell Glass in Yorkshire last Tuesday PM and the torch and ancillary equipment was delivered Thursday morning, so very good service from them. I got a tank of propane gas on Friday from the local camping store and we sorted out a temporary place for me to torch on Saturday. The beads in the photo following are the result. Basically I played, trying out first Moretti glass rods and then some Bullseye fusible. I even tested some Spectrum fusible and waterglass to see what would happen to the colours. I kept notes because although most of the non-Moretti colours produced dark/greyer/beigey shades, I could see that such odd colours might come in useful some day. I even melted a piece of Kokomo brown and green streaky to see what happened. The squarish beads in the picture are the result. I also made some twisties for the first time and used them in a few of the beads. I cooled the beads in vermiculite for the time being but when I have a few more, will put them in the kiln to properly anneal. At the moment, I am standing to torch but have to take a rest after each bead as my back muscles go into spasm, (old injury).
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More beads
Here are the ones I did Sunday evening. I was trying to produce two beads of similar size and pattern and to produce a focal bead incorporating all three colours. The shapes are now more reasonable so I will go on to try to make my cube shapes more regular.
The middle bead was made by making five small beads side by side, 2 black, 2 green, one white, marvering the resulting long bead to shape and then using a pick to pull some of the colours towards the centre. I wanted a bead larger than the two black ones to act as a focal bead and I think I've achieved this.
Marvering?
What is 'mavering'? Is that like when you see glass blowers shaping the bowl with a wet wooden shaped tool?
Shaping
It is shaping but using a graphite pad to roll the glass onto and aquire a shape other than circular.I don't know if wet wood would suffice but will try sometime in the future.