This page is dedicated to tutorials - that's right folks - I'm going to share my knowledge with you (well, some of it....I have to maintain some kind of air of mystery, don't I?).  

This one is a tutorial on how to make one of my favoritest beads of all time:

the RAINBOW SWIRLY BEAD!!

I did this for a recent English project (which is why it has so much explanation stuff in it, as no one in my class had any idea what 'lampworking' was) and I thought to myself, "Self, you should put this up on the website for all the wonderful glass-lovers out there, so they, too, can make the fabulous RAINBOW SWIRLY BEAD!"  In my head the words 'RAINBOW SWIRLY BEAD' come out as kind of a super-hero booming voice with a bit of an echo on them...yeah, yeah, I'm weird, but I'm getting weirder. :P

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make one of my favorite beads, with a bit of a new twist on how I shape it in the final stages.  To start, you need to mix the Alice’s Bead Release powder with some water until it is pancake mix consistency (remember not to inhale any of the dust while you’re pouring and mixing because it’s very bad for your lungs).  After you dip the mandrel in the bead release, allow it to air dry (Why use bead release?  Because, if you didn’t, you’d fuse the glass onto the mandrel and have a lovely planter decoration).  Now you are ready to start making your fabulous RAINBOW SWIRL BEAD!

	1)  Choose your colors – it’s your preference as to the exact shades of glass you use, but try to avoid any colors that are opalinos (translucent or specialty colors of glass) as they might scum up in the flame because you have to work it in the flame for quite a bit.  Also, because it is called a rainbow bead, you want to choose some colors found in the ROY G. BIV family, and make sure they are high contrast to each other…you’ll see why in a bit, trust me.
	2) Now that you have your colors picked out, take the white rod of glass and melt a base bead onto the bead release on the mandrel.  The length of the base bead will determine how long and big your final bead will be.  Melt the white glass onto the mandrel and marver flat with your graphite marver.
	3) Add your colors as if you were doing linear casing (add the glass in stripes from the top of the bead to the bottom of the bead), making sure that you have the darker colors separated by the bright colors – it should go dark, bright, dark, bright, etc around the bead.  I find that this is the best way to get the best color effects out of the glass.  You can also see why we use a white base bead – by using the white base bead you can easily see if you have missed a spot, go back, and cover it up with one of your colors.
	4) Once you have all the colors placed on the base bead, melt them all in together; because of surface tension, the glass will always melt into the roundest shape it can manage.
	5) Now that all of the colors are melted into each other (top) you can take your handy-dandy raking tool, in this case a dental pick, and deeply rake the glass from the bottom to the top of the bead in one continuous spiral (bottom).
	6) After you finish raking the bead, you need to melt it back down to a round shape in the flame so you can case it in clear to give the bead depth.
	7) Now that the bead is nice and round, take your Vetrofond clear and case it using the linear technique.  To do this, don’t be afraid of letting the bead cool down outside of the flame – you need the surface to be cooler so you don’t get those little lines that show where the casing glass joined on the surface of the bead.  Get a good sized blob going on the end of the rod of clear while you hold the bead just outside of the flame.  Bringing the molten blob of glass to the bead, push the blob onto the bead at the top on the bead, pushing down the side to the bottom.  The thickness of the casing will be determined by the amount of glass you get in the blob, how
	8) Once you have everything encased in the clear glass, melt the bead until it is round again (top).  After you let it cool just a little bit (so the skin of the bead starts to get firm), take your large mashers and squish the bead between the two plates (bottom).  This is where having the mashers with the adjustable height comes in handy; you don’t have to worry about getting the bead to thin as you will have the thickness of the bead at a set distance.
	9) Take the mashed bead (it will look flat and round at this point) and turn it so you are squishing the sides of the bead in the masher – this will create a flat, square bead with gently rounded corners.  At this point, you can take your graphite marver and do some touch-up work on the edges so that everything is as even as possible (no ‘doughnut’ dimpling around the ends of the bead)
	10)  All that’s left to do now is fire polish the bead to take off the chill marks (you can see in the ‘step 9’ picture) the mashers and the marver made (the spiral impression on the surface of the bead after you touch them against something cool).  Once the polishing is complete, allow the bead to cool in the fire blanket (the dense fiberglass blanket that brings the temperature of the beads down slowly to prevent thermal shock that can crack your beads and ruin al the hard work you just put into them), or pop it in the kiln that has been heated to about 800oC to anneal it right away.  If you cool the bead in the blanket, you can ‘batch anneal’ later (when you take a number of finished beads and put them in a cool kiln, slowly bring the temperature up about 800oC to 900oC, hold it at this temperature for about a half hour to an hour, then slowly bring the temp down to allow to cool overnight.  After it has cooled down, you can use your lovely bead in just about anything your creativity allows!
	Here is the finished bead – you can see why the high contrast colors are needed for the bead - once you swirl all of the colors together, there are thin and thick swirly lines and you need the contrast tot distinguish between the colors.  When I made this one, I had it in mind to be a solitaire bead on a silver chain.  It’s a simple, but elegant way of displaying your work.  The soft edges make your fingers want to touch it while you wear it, while the flat shape lets it lay against your skin nicely without feeling lumpy or awkward like a large round bead would feel.

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Last modified: 03/30/08

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