PB Cohen Creations

If guess I'm one of the three you think reads this! I would try some bead release (if you have it) on the bead to protect it from the heat...let me know if it works!

Thanks for reading, Maxine! I looked up "bead release" and it seems to be a material that lets glass beads be easily removed from a mandrel after you've made it? (Looks like you're from Canada, and somehow English is different here in Michigan....)

From the situation, though, I'm guessing you're suggesting I do something to protect my "actual" bead while I'm heating up the wire. And YES! Absolutely. In fact, once I used a big torch tip to heat the wire, figuring "well, I've never tried this before," and got the bead so hot it fell apart!

Since then, I paint all the seams in the bead with something to HOPEFULLY keep the bead from falling apart. But still, although the wire starts balling up just fine, it seems like the closer I get to the bead, the more it acts as a heat sink, and the wire stops balling up.

Of course, I am probably still a little wary of destroying the bead..... Gotta get over that fear.

I use one of two things to keep the solder from flowing again on the bead: yellow ochre powder mixed with water (this is a little slow to dry), or a correction fluid like "Wite-Out" or "Liquid Paper."

Re drawing a bead: Ochre was the next thing that I was going to mention as a possible solution to protect the bead/stop it as a heat sink...so too bad it didn't work either...in regards to the bead release, it is in fact for releasing a glass bead off the mandrel after being made but is made of a clay slip that (if painted on over the entire bead) might just keeep the heat away long enough for you to finish balling up. I never before heard of using white out, it is a great tip!
What about making a heat guard in thin gauge sheet that you slip over the bead. You could cover the side facing the heat with yellow ochre for melt portection?
Another solution might be found in the torchwork field...there are fibre blankets and papers on the market which are used to protect the beads from cooling too quickly before they are put into the kiln for annealing. Arrow springs has them on the link below.

http://www.arrowsprings.com...

You could protect the bead by wrapping it with a piece of blanket, or paper?
Let me know how you solve this one!
Regards
Maxine

Check out this video re another possible solution!
http://www.ganoksin.com/ben...

Oh, that Ganoksin video is a great tip. I've watched someone submerge a finished ring in water, in order to re-size the shank - but it was unsuccessful. Submerging the ring in wet sand with a piece of firebrick through the shank seems like a great idea - and of course this one worked!

I was able to draw my beads, I'm putting that in a new blog entry. Thanks for your ideas!