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Old 2011-03-01, 5:43am
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j2canoe j2canoe is offline
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Join Date: Jul 16, 2009
Location: Upstate South Carolina about 20 minutes south of Asheville, NC
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Default How to Make the Implosion/Petal Beads

I want to share how I make the Implosion/Petal beads like the ones below. The trick to these beads is PATIENCE and PRACTICE. They are not fast beads to make. Remember too that YOU control the glass, not the other way round. By varying the thickness of your layer of clear and the direction you hold the mandrel when melting your bead down, you can change the length of your petals and the shape of your bead. You can add or take away clear to also alter the shape. You can also change the look of your flower/implosion by altering the placement of your dots for each layer. The best way to learn these beads is to play with the elements and see what happens. Here are the instructions for my Bird of Paradise set: Sally (Cadia) has put together a Fabulous visual reference for these beads - the link is located here (it takes a few seconds to load - be patient):

http://flamingfools.com/Joan%20Implo...al%20Beads.pdf

First - pull stringers (about 1mm) of Ink Blue Pastel, Ink Blue transparent , Dk Aqua transparent and CIM Heffalump. And have a full rod of clear ready.
2. Make a very small disk bead (about two wraps) on the mandrel of the Ink Blue Transparent.
3. Place six dots of your Ink Blue Pastel equally around the disk and melt in.
4. Place dots of Ink Blue trans on top of these and melt in.
5. Place dots of Aqua trans on top of these and melt in.
6. Take your rod of clear and make one wrap over the dots around the disk and melt in - this will become your stamen.

(you will probably need to reshape your disk with a tool throughout this process - it doesn't have to be super-skinny - just fairly disk-y)

7. Take your Ink Blue Pastel and make 6 smallish dots on the right side of the disk halfway between the center of the disk and the mandrel and melt in.
8. Put dots of Aqua trans on top of these and melt in.
9. Put dots of the Ink Blue trans on top of these and melt in.
10. Make a smaller dot (tiny) on the extreme right side of these same dots of Heffalump and melt in.
11. Wrap the disk again with your rod of clear - but this time only cover the dots you just applied in steps 7-10. Your wrap will be on the right side of the bead where the dots are - not the whole bead. Melt in.
12. Make six more dots of your Ink Blue Pastel around the disk placing them between the dots you made last time. The dots you made in the last round should have spread into little petal-y looking ones - so these dots will go at their base toward the mandrel on the right. Melt in.
13. Cover these dots with the Ink Blue Trans and melt in
14. Cover these dots with the Aqua Trans and melt in.
15. Make another tiny dot on each with the Heffalump at the extreme right side of these dots and melt in.
16. Once again wrap with your clear - one wrap - only covering the dots you have just applied and melt in.

Whew!!! If you look again at the beads - it should help make the placement clearer.

17. Now heat the whole shebang up - not too hot or your petals will feather out, but enough so that the glass will flow- hold your mandrel perpendicular to your table while heating up to get the dots to do their thing. I usually heat the bead to just glowing and then remove it from the heat and hold it straight up (bead facing with the petals pointing directly toward the table - then on the next heat have the petals facing towards the ceiling, etc) until the glass stops moving. You have to shape the bead ends with a tool during this process -You have to do this many times until you get the petals as long as you want. Also remember to always turn the mandrel backwards and forwards throughout (from step one) to keep your dots from favoring one side or the other. You can add a little clear glass to either side over your other clear if you need to during the heating to make the shape pretty and make the ends go longer - but usually - if your clear wrap over each set of dots was thick enough, you don't need to. This bead you kind of just need to play with - it took me forever to figure it out and then once I realized that you have to hold the mandrel Straight up and down after giving it enough heat to allow the glass to move - the Lightbulb went off!!! You can make as many sets of petals as you want - just remember to wrap with the full rod of clear in between each set. I usually alternate the dot placement for each row, but you don't have to.
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Last edited by j2canoe; 2012-02-18 at 10:44am.
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