Using the Osibin Lentil Shaper

Sometimes I feel like I'm just bloggin' in the wind, but I get these ideas and figure I might just as well write them here as anywhere else!

Recently, when meeting with some other beadmakers, I brought along my Osibin lentil shaper. When one of the gals said- you use one of those? Can you show me how? My confident answer was "Sure!" And then I proceeded to show that I had no clue HOW I used it- but use it I do. There are some of us in the lampworking world who don't use any of the cool lentil presses that exist. It is partly a $$ thing, and partly just a bit of stubborn- ness. But it is also, I think, a bit more time consuming and difficult to get a standard size and shape bead without a press.

So here's how I use this tool.

First of all, you can see I've made a slight modification. I used my trusty diamond reamer to make a wee slot for my mandrel. Without it I couldn't seem to get the bead deeply enough in the shaper to make a nice flat lentil. If you choose to do this, be very careful to center the slot on the lentil shape. So far, I have only modified the smaller two depressions.

Now to start the bead. With this shaper, as with all lentil shaping tools, you need to measure your starter bead-you want to make your base bead a little shorter than the press as it will lengthen slightly as you work on it. I'd say about 1/8 inch shorter over all. You don't have to make the bead large enough to go across the entire length of the shaper if you don't want to. And if you end up getting a little too large you can just move up to the next size. That's one advantage of this tool- you've got four different sizes to choose from. I started with a small black tube that I've rolled in silver foil. I started out pretty small as I didn't want to outgrow the shaper.

I added some more clear glass to encase the silver and rolled it in a bit of raku frit.

Now it's time to think about the shape you need to get a nice even press. Make your bead into a bicone, and then roll the center into a barrel shape- so you've got a kind of fat barrel with ends that taper towards the mandrel (see picture). Make sure the bead is nice and cylindrical. If it's at all wonky, you'll have a difficult time getting a nice lentil shape. Either keep that basic shape, or else let it kind of melt into an oval. If you are trying to make a pair of beads, remember which shape you ended up with, because you will be making that same shape again .

And now it's time to press. Get your bead nice and hot all over- orangey hot, not white hot. You may have to try this a few times before you get the hang of it. Pause before pressing, but only for a couple of seconds, then put into the shaper and press down, rocking the bead slightly from side to side to make the edges a little thinner. Quickly turn it over and press again. You do not necessarily want to press straight down- watch what's happening- you may need to push a little more on one side, or actually kind of slide the bead across the shaper a little to get it nice and evenly shaped. I like being able to actually see what the bead is doing and tweak the shape as I go. You may need to reheat and shape a little bit again.

According to the information on the Arrow Springs website, you'll press one side, reheat, and then press the other side, but with these beads, I went directly from one side to the other. Another thing they mention is that each of the four diameters has a different curve to it, making many different types of shape possible. I didn't know that!

I didn't use any other tool to shape these beads, and look how close they are to each other in size and shape- I used them for a pair of earrings and part of a necklace.

Six Women, Three Torches

Six Women, Three Torches- Anything Could Happen!

What a day we had yesterday- it was lampwork bead day in Sherwood at Glass Concepts. Six lampwork beadmakers gathered together for show and tell, and what a session it was! Grace brought a couple of beads she’d made using the new Gaffer Chalcedony glass on a 96 clear background. She got some really nice colors, but I forgot to take any pictures.

I tried out some shards I’d made on a black Moretti background. I had a bit of success, though I think I heated a bit too long. Rita made a base of the Gaffer Hyacinth, then added some Chalcedony dots and encased them in clear. The colors seemed to be striking nicely around the edges of the dots, so she raked it around a bit and spread them out. We’re still working on getting all the beautiful colors that are possible and getting some consistency. Everybody got a bit to take home, so hopefully we’ll have some real beauties to show off at our next gathering.
One great thing about getting the Gaffer glass is that I’ve started learning to blow shards. I’ve been pretty happy with the results- now to learn to apply them properly!

Grace has had a bee in her bonnet (which has recently been buzzing around my head) about scrollwork on beads. The lovely Rita was just the person to demonstrate this technique. My suspicion is that she locked herself in a closet and didn’t come out ‘til she got it right! The bead she’s working on here is an opal yellow background with silver plum decorations (I think). Her stringer control was mesmerizing- what patience and precision. Afterwards, I tried to use a bead press and do a bit of scrollwork. No photo of that- what a mess, but Rita watched over my shoulder and helped me to understand what I need to work on.

And the piece de resistance was Debby’s electric mandrel spinner. Debby has spent some serious hours on the torch, and her thumbs are starting to show the strain. So she bought this amazing machine to help her out- it spins the mandrel around while you add the glass. Impressive, yes? It’s a great invention that takes a bit of time to get used to. The thing is it spins around quite a bit faster than any of us were used to. There is a little brake you can put your fingers on to slow it down a little, though. While Vicki trained her video camera on her, Grace gave it a try. I wish we’d had audio- she was hilarious! In the end, five of us tried it out. Glenda and Vicki actually did pretty well. They got some fairly round results. And there was a cool bead roller to use with it that we all enjoyed trying out, and an unidentified tool pictured here. Debby's going to have to practice, pratice, practice to get some nice round beads, but she's determined, and we're all waiting to see it. It really has great promise to save all of our hands from overusage injuries.

And I almost forgot. Rita had another great little tool for making flower stamens. She made a very nice example using yellows, green and some intense black. We each got a little bit to take home and try out. All in all it was an amazing day!

Here are links to show off some of the wonderful work of these lampworking ladies:

Vicki at Parrotise Beads: http://www.parrotisebeads.com/

Debby at Starlight Designs: http://www.starlight-beads.com/

Ms Rita: http://www.msritasbeads.etsy.com/

Oh, and me too: http://www.glassbead.etsy.com/

Playing with some new frit from Gaffer

I bought a little bit of Chalcedony glass from Gaffer a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still working on getting some good colors out of it. My bead group is meeting again this weekend, so I'll bring some along for us to test out. I haven't really had a chance to play with it too much yet as it's pretty hot in my studio at this time of year. Right now I'm just barely keeping up with the things I 'have' to make.
In the meantime, I've been trying out a couple of the frit samples. Frit has never been my favorite thing, but these were so interesting looking that I couldn't wait to give them a try. Here are some of the beads I've made using the lime aventurine and gold pink extra frits I received.
The lime green is a beautiful bright green with some nice sparkle- perfect for frogs, I think! The aventurine is in the back end of this one.
The gold pink extra is wonderful. It's like Moretti EDP with out all the E and D. In other words, it's all the beautiful pinky-purple color without all the problems. In this bead it's swirled with a bit of gold pink on a background of white Thompson enamel- a nice color combination, and one that's really hard to do with EDP and gold pink as they want very different flame atmospheres.

I'm going to blow some shards with some of the chalcedony and some of the other rods. My fusing buddy is pretty excited about coming over and watching me make some shards. I've got a feeling he may be a little disappointed when he sees that I couldn't blow a nice even globe if my life depended on it. At least he'll have a few samples to take home with him!

I'm going to try and get some photos of the glass group at play this weekend. Wish me luck!

Flowers of glass, flowers on glass

So, what have I been doing? Well, not paying attention to this blog, that's for sure.
I wrote a tutorial that may never see the light of day on making these flower beads. I haven't quite figured out what to do with it, but I do know I want to expand on it before I do anything. I made some flowers, wrote the tut, waited two days, came up with an easier, possibly better way, made some more flowers, and added an addendum to the tut.
Now it's time to go to more complex flowers and see what happens. I tried a pansy, but was not enormously happy with it, so I'll work on that and irisis, and then see what comes next. Maybe some nice bright lily colors. I have a friend who sells lilies at the local farmer's market- they are amazingly beautiful, and come in so many different colors and patterns. So I need to permit myself to buy some next weekend. I could get a receipt and take it off my taxes! It truly is a business expense. Here are some pictures I've been working on for something like cards- flowers on glass. So it's a double business expense! One for a bead model, one for photos.