Beatrix Alfray 2016 What is “Lampworking?” The term Lampwork comes from the technique of working glass over a flame, or lamp. Making glass beads wound on a mandrel is an ancient process. Glass beads can be found in virtually all cultures and times. Making Beads Safety! Safety! Safety! Working with glass can be hazardous to your health; taking precautions can make it less so. It is pretty much guaranteed that you WILL burn yourself and cut yourself if you make beads for any length of time, following basic safety guidelines may mean the difference between a small burn ord cut, an a trip to the emergency room. Glass rods can have very sharp pieces that stick off the end; they can also break as you work with them. Thinner rods and twisted stringer are notorious for this. I have seen people sliced by rod edges, or by pieces of glass that pop off and land on the bench. Burns are far more common. Being aware of what you are doing and where you put things is strongly advised. ALWAYS put your hot glass rods on the rod rest, with the hot end resting on it. I keep all the hot tools and glass in one place and cool items in another. Don’t reach across your flame. Try to put what you need on your dominant hand side. Sounds basic, and it is. Most glass handling, hot or cold, is just using common sense. Soft glass, which is what we are using, starts melting at around 1283 degrees (F, not that freaky C) and we work it at about 1700 degrees. At that temperature, you burn VERY quick at contact. The flame of a Hot Head torch flame using MAPP Pro burns at about 2680 degrees and your flesh smells and tastes like pork cracklins when you accidentally put your hand in the flame. Thermal Shock is what happens when glass expands/contracts too quickly, basically it explodes. It is very important to introduce the glass to the flame slowly and pointing the rod away from yourself. This will help most of the glass shoot away, instead of at, you. Be sure that when you work on glass that you dress appropriately. Natural fibers are your friend! Don’t wear polyester; it will melt directly to your skin. Ask me how I know! Wear shirts with necks that will help stop glass from going rdown you shirt, and sleeves that won’t catch exploding glass, or on to things on your work desk. Try to prepare the area you are going to be working on for extremely hot items. You may not want to work on Aunt Mabel’s antique table sitting on her Persian rug or Vinyl flooring. Rods that are still hot can roll off glass racks, or be dropped. Thermal shocked glass can fly an impressive distance and at a temperature that can cause combustion of wood, fabric or solvents. Having a flame resistant surface, such as cheap ceramic tiles can help reduce damage to table tops. Plastic and even some wood tables release toxic fumes when melted or burned. One other thing to consider, if you are making beads in your house, your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance probably will not cover you if there is a fire, injury or other damages related to this activity. In fact many insurance companies will cancel your policy if you are found to have this in your home. Beatrix Alfray 2016 ALWAYS have a fire extinguisher close at hand. Be sure to have them inspected at regular intervals. Having one that doesn’t work when needed is dumb. Set up your work space in a way that you do not put the flame between you and the exit. Things can go bad very quickly and you need to be able to get away and out. Have an exit strategy! Eye Protection is VITAL. Shards of glass in your eye are bad. HOT shards in of glass in your eye are worse. You can have glass fly at you from thermal shock or by it being on your fingers and wiped into your eyes. There is also Soda Flare to be aware of. Soda Flare is caused when the soda in Soda Lime glass is melted. To the naked eye it is a brighter orange “flare” Over time, this flare can cause eye damage. This process is accelerated when you use a hotter torch or borosilicate glass. Wearing your own prescription is “OK” but not ideal. Ideally you want to wear properly “shaded” glass. For working soft glass, you should use Polycarbonate Sodium Flare glasses, or Didymium glasses. Ventilation!! (Silicosis is a form of lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust, and is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis. Because chronic silicosis is slow to develop, signs and symptoms may not appear until years after exposure) From Wikipedia. It is a serious issue for glass workers because there are so many sources of silica in what we do. There is glass dust from the rods we handle, there is silica in almost all of the bead release, there is silica in the fiber blankets and cooling bubbles. There is silica dust in the frit, and lead and other toxic chemicals too! The different additives that make glass all the pretty colors can also release fumes that are not good for you to breath in. You need to be absolutely sure you have adequate ventilation to ensure that you lessen your exposure as much as possible. When you set up your workstation, test the ventilation using smoke bombs or multiple sticks of incense. Not only do you need to be sure that there is something to help the fumes escape, but also that there is enough air coming in to replace what is being pulled out. It is important to know that the Mapp pro, or propane fumes both are heavier than air and will settle around the floor. Beatrix Alfray 2016 GLASS, Finally! Now that I have beaten you about the head and shoulders with the safety stuff, let’s have fun! We are going to start by making Stringer. It is something you need to learn and will help you start understanding how hot glass moves, how to read the heat in glass and how to be patient. Stringer is exactly what it sounds like, strings of glass. You will be using these strings later, so make nice ones. =) Twisties are next. We are going to make stringers of twisted glass. You can make them with as many colors as you want! There are many different types of glass, and they all have their unique working properties. We will be using what is called “soft” glass. It is made using pure silica sand, lime and soda ash. It has a COE or coefficient of expansion, of 104. When you are making glass beads it is important to make sure your glass is of the same COE. If it isn’t, the bead will crack and break due to the different cooling speed of the glasses. There is a pretty simple test you can use to determine if two glasses are compatible. The largest makers of soft glass are Effetre (Moretti), made in Murano, Italy, Creation is Messy (CiM) which is made in China, Lauscha, which is made in Germany and Devardi, which is made in India. As a beginner, I would avoid Devardi glass. It is usually very “shocky” which means it is prone to Thermal Shock. Making a Bead Ha‐ha! I tricked you! Let’s learn the things we need to make a bead! Torch: we are using a “Hot Head like torch” Mandrels: The little metal sticks in the bucket of sand. We are going to wrap glass around these to make beads. Release: Is a clay slip that is on the end of the mandrel. This will allow you remove the bead from the mandrel once it has cooled. Water: a cup of water to cool your tools in, and for killing failed beads. Cooling Beads, Fiber blanket, kiln: Something to cool dyour bea down very slowly. Glass can thermal shock on the way down too. It isn’t as explosive, but it is a sad moment. The only way to guarantee that a bead won’t thermal shock is to anneal it in a kiln. This eliminates the stress on the crystalline matrix of the glass that occurs by melting and shaping the glass. To anneal a bead, you hold it at a temperature specific to the COE of the glass and then cool it very, very slowly. It is considered bad business practice to sell beads that have not been annealed. The ancient bead makers annealed their beads in the furnace that they used to make them. Beatrix Alfray 2016 To make a bead is a simple thing, to make it WELL takes practice. Glass wants to be a sphere. It’s like water that way. Let it do the work for you, be patient. Use the properties of the molten glass and gravity do a lot of the work. Heat the rood of glass and let it form a sphere of melted glass at the end. That sphere is called a “Gather” You can make a small gather to make a small bead or a larger gather to make a larger bead. Letting that gather build saves your bead release ((which can crack or flake off and ruin your bead) and helps you start your bead with a decent shape already there.