The Blue Bead
 

Here's the recipe for the blue bead.

You need:
Clear
Transparent cobalt
silver foil

1. Make a base of transparent cobalt.
2. Add threaded clear stringer and melt in.
3. Wrap in silver foil and burnish.
4. Apply more threaded clear stringer.
5. Melt in slowly, watching for the robin's egg blue reaction.
6. Case with clear, keeping the base bead out of the flame.

You must be sitting right in your chair, the stars in the right alignment, and holding your mouth right. In other words, this is a really hard chemical reaction to reproduce. :?

Threaded Stringer

Heat a small gather of glass.
Out of flame, touch the gather to your bead and spin your bead to pull out thin strands of glass.

thank you soooooo much for posting this yet again!!!

I have to ask how in the HELL do you get such a nice even THIN casement of clear? Im VERY envious of that

sigh.......this is so beautiful!

It's not that thin, it just looks like it on TV. :D Here's the bead photographed in water...see? I fixed an uneven bead with the casing.

Sara, what a gorgeous bead! Thanks for sharing the recipe too!! Very nice of you..... :D Can't wait to get to the torch tomorrow!

Sara I think it's really sweet of you to share this bead with us. SOMEDAY one of mine will come out looking like this :oops:

How yummy! I can't wait for some torch time now!

Thanks for sharing!
Sue

Really wonderful share that is beautiful! Can't wait to try it. :D

Sara, that's a beautiful bead - I can't believe the ingredients are so simple. That blue just really pops.

What a magnificent bead Sara! When you say "threaded stringer" do you mean stringer that is very very thin?

Sara I really love that bead and blue is one of my fav colors!! I gave it a whack and here is what I came up with yesterday! Yours still looks much better!!

Sarakay!! That is GORGEOUS!!! I'll have to give it a try too... I'm quite sure tho, mine will NOT look like yours or Anne's! :doubt: It would be fun to see everyone try it & post their results! 8-)

A question about threaded clear.....what is it? Clear stringer pulled extremely thin? Clear that is silvered similar to the silvered ivory process??? Inquiring minds want to know....thanks for a GREAT tutorial and a FABULOUS blue bead!

What I did with mine was heat up the clear rod, touch it to the bead and then turn the bead. It gets pretty thin lines that way.

Wow Sara... that bead is GORGEOUS! I want to go try it now. :) Thanks for sharing the technique!

I really like the idea of silvered clear... I bet some wonderful effects can be acheived using it, if not on this bead than in other applications. Thanks for the great idea!

I love using silvered clear!! :D

Threaded stringer is when you heat a small gather of glass and barely touch it down on your bead. Then you turn your bead quickly to draw out a tiny thread of clear. It takes some practice, but you can get really thin, delicate lines with this technique.

Anne, I love your bead! And thanks everybody for saying nice things about my bead. I looked it up in the ISGB archives. I made that bead in May of 2000 and haven't really been able to make one as nice since then.

Simply put....I'm =P~

Aligning the planets
 

Beautiful bead -- I tried, and haven't seen final results yet but it doesn't look like I got much. That was before the explanation of what a threaded stringer was, so I'll try again next week. One question -- do you use a lot of the stringer, so it covers most of the cobalt and then the silver, or do you keep it sparse?

Thanks for posting this --

The link doesn't work anymore.

picorama
 

GREAT! That really helps. I did it all wrong.

That is beautiful!!! I am goign to give it a try the next time I torch !!!

I love :love: this bead !!!! I have tried it twice and going to try again. I got two very cool mottled amber bead. Going to try again.

Cathy

I saw this bead at the Gathering - itis awesome. I am going to have to try this technique again. hugs.

YIPPY ~ tried it again and got some blue (with amber mixed in for good measure. Just got to try again. I am making cylinders and thought that maybe I had too much class but the one that "worked" is a cylinder as well.


Cathy

That is an awsome bead! Thanks for posting this tutorial! :)

Hello Sarakay,
what a great tutorial and of course what a beautiful bead!
I tried it with transparent red and got som blue reactions but forgot to encase it :?
Silvia