[swamper]

I promised a tut - I suck at making movies - I tried - my torch flame was so small in the frame I know there is no way you could see what I was doing, so I will try to explain what works for me and let you adapt it to your style.

Firstly, I use Sludge Plus. I don't have experience with other releases but I think any release that works for beads, should work for thimbles.

The first thing I do is to make sure that the release is wrapped around the underside of the mandrel like I show in the drawing I send with the mandrels. If the release is too thick, I spin the mandrel in my hand to even it out - not enough to throw release all over the room, just enough to let centrifugal force even the release out. I air dry my mandrels poked down in a piece of styro foam.

At the torch, I heat the living snot out of the head of the mandrel head - the whole thing gets glowing YELLOW hot. When it's good and hot, I start feeding my underlayer on - usually white because it is nice and soft and pushes on nicely. See the first picture. Notice that I do not specifically try to get the white glass all the way to the bottom of the mandrel head. I cover the top of the mandrel head too - then heat and marver the whole thing smooth - even the top, by pressing down perpendicular.

I add the second color that will be my base for design the same way I added the white, only this time, I usually add an extra wrap at the bottom of the head so that when I marver, the color layer will push down below the white to the bottom of the marver head - I marver the bottom of the thimble against the edge of my torch marver to make it even with the bottom of the mandrel head - taking care not to push it under the head - don't want that baby to get stuck. At this point the bottom of the thimble is pretty straight and even.

Then I decorate and add a groove for the bottom with a knife, if the design allows - see the second and third photos.

I heat and flatten the top of the thimble - heat and press into the small flower frog that I got at Michaels. I have seen some round tops, I've seen some flat tops. I guess it's a personal preference.

I think the two most important points are - 1. get that mandrel head YELLOW HOT so that applying the glass does not take off the release and 2. take care to not push the glass under the mandrel head so that you can remove your thimble without cracking the edges of your thimble.

That's it - have fun and share your successes.