Process

Flameworking is an ancient process dating back thousands of years. The Egyptians used furnaces to create core formed vessels of glass more than 5000 years ago. The Romans expanded upon this idea, using a blowpipe to create more intricate and versatile creations. The Italians refined and perfected the technique and guarded their secrets closely, secreting all the glass workers to the island of Murano; both to help keep their formulas safe from competitors in Asia and Africa, and to reduce the risk of fire on the mainland. Eventually, the furnaces made way for an oil lamp device (with a mouthpiece to force air through the flame) that could melt glass using far less resources. This gives us the term “lampworking.” Today the lamps have been replaced with oxygen/propane mix torches that burn at over 1800 degrees F., but the basic process remains much the same.

A steel rod is dipped in a clay-type material called “release” to help remove the bead after completion. Otherwise, the glass would permanently bond with the steel and you would have a lovely plant decoration!

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Pencil sized rods of glass are heated in the flame until molten, and wound around the coated rod (called a mandrel) to form a bead. Constant rotation and heat are necessary to form a round bead. After the base bead is formed, additional layers of glass, precious metals, and enamels are added, depending on the design.

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The bead must be shaped into its final form, then placed in a kiln to be annealed. This is a very important step! Annealing is the process of slowly reducing the temperature of the bead in order to remove stress from the glass. If beads are not annealed, they will most likely break at some point. Annealing takes several hours, and so the finished beads are not usually seen until morning. It’s a great way to wake up!

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Once the beads are cool, they are removed from the mandrels and each bead hole must be cleaned out carefully to remove all of the clay release. I use a dremel tool with a diamond bit.

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At this point, the bead may be etched, electroformed, sandblasted, or simply strung into a lovely jewelry piece. Any questions? Email me!