Imploded Stars

[glassbead]

I hope this works!
You can find directions to Amy Trescotts beads here. The name of the thread is "Who made these beads???and how?"
For Mary Lockwood's implosions, look here for the "Mandrel wound implosions" thread. Or go to www.marylockwood.com/tutorials

Here are the instructions without the pictures. For the pictures you'll have to open the attachment- I just couldn't figure out how to do it here.

First off, let me thank Mary Lockwood for her implosion instructions, and Amy Trescott for the directions to her astounding beads, all right here on lampworketc. When I tried to follow Amy’s directions, I had a bit of a mess on my hands, but could see the potential. It got me thinking about the implosion directions I had used many months ago, and I came up with a plan. Nothing so beautiful as Amy’s beads, but something I could work with. I was pretty excited, and I know there’s someone out there who can take this and run with it. So I thought I’d go ahead and put it out there. Well here goes- I hope the directions make sense. I have no camera or photographer, so you’ll just have to put up with my crude drawings.

I started thinking about the problem of seeing the mandrel hole last night, and came up with a change to this tutorial. Instead of winding on the small clear bit to the right of the black, simply make the black part longer, then implode over it. This should give you a nice background for the whole bead while covering up that mandrel hole.

I used three main color groups of glass for these beads, plus black and clear. Of course you can try more, though this seems about right for a first try. In each color group you will need one solid and one clear rod, more if you’re feeling adventurous.

You’ll start your bead by making a series of three winds on your mandrel. In this picture, the section on the left begins as a clear pea-sized bead. Melt this into a truncated cylinder with nicely shaped ends, then add a couple more winds of clear to make a small disk. Next to this you will add a short cylinder of black glass. To the right of the black glass, add a short wrap of clear glass (or more black). The three sections should be touching each other, with the section on the left staying in a disk shape.

Now you’re ready to start adding colors. What you’re trying to do is basically to make a star on top of the black glass. None of the colors will be totally melted in, though they should all be made to blend after application. So, add the solid color that you want at the larger end of your implosion first. You should put at least five dots around the black core, leaving a bit of space between the dots. Melt down a bit and add the transparent of the same color group and melt some. Add dots of clear or a pale transparent of the same color group on top of these dots. At this point you can add some dots of clear between the piles of built up colored dots to keep them separated, though it’s not necessary. Now you will do the same thing with the other two color groups, adding the dots maybe just slightly to the right of your original group, and a layer of clear between, melting together as you go. Just keep in mind that you’re making a star on top of that black cylinder. The clear layer adds to the petal-like effect, and keeps the colors separated.

Once you have all of your colors dotted on, you will have a star-shaped bead on top of your black core bead. Now comes the part I probably can’t draw a picture of (though I did try). You will need to expand your clear disk by adding two or three wraps, and then begin inching the star and the disk closer to each other. I use my small mashers for this. It must be done slowly and carefully so as not to break your bead release. You will mash them closer, add another wrap or two of clear to your disk, then inch them closer again. Continue wrapping your clear disk until it is sticking up above the star by at least two wraps. Melt the disk and star together, mashing together if necessary to speed things along a bit. Once the star and disk are all of a piece, and there are no ridges in the clear disk, you are ready to implode.

Heat evenly all the way around, aiming your flame at the rim of the disk while pointing the mandrel down (for this I have no picture). This is best done rather slowly with an eye to keeping the bead evenly heated, though you may need to spin the bead rather quickly at times to lengthen the disk and keep it from melting down before you’re ready. Now you will basically be following the directions from step four on for a regular implosion bead as explained by Mary Lockwood here on lampworketc. You want to be sure the glass melts together from the disk end down to try and keep from trapping bubbles.

This will give you a nice cone-shaped bead. You may want to decorate the small end of the bead somewhat to hide the mandrel hole. So far, I haven’t succeeded in re-shaping this type of bead and keeping the implosion effect. There are a lot of possibilities for this type of bead- more complicated star shapes, or another shape with a clear disk melted over it.

[categ50]

I have been wondering how to do these for a while.
Thanks!
Cate

[glassbead]

Hope these directions weren't too wordy. Looks like lots of folks are looking, but nobody's saying anything. Let me know if it doesn't make sense. Again, please excuse the lack of pics. I have no camera. The attachment does have some drawings that, hopefully, will help. And thanks for your response, Cate.

[Moth]

I think it's a really smart twist and a way to get good depth in those stacked dots and encase them all at once. I'm going to play with this a bit myself!

Not sure why you aren't getting much response! Basically, it is just make a star bead on the mandrel using Sarah Schalken's tutorial. Build a tall clear disk next to it, but not touching following my mandrel wound implosion tutorial. Soften them with the flame and join them together, then implode! You end up with the sideways stacked dots like Amy Trescott's only these are imploded into the clear disk ending up with beads like the ones shown in the first post of this thread.

Thanks for sharing your discovery!!! I'm going to have fun with it.

~~Mary

[pittypat]

I would love to try this, but can't open the doc....can some nice torcher put this in a pdf document??? please???

Thanks, pat

[RuskinDesigns]

excellent description. I cannot wait to give it a try. Thank you

[Robinj]

I'm definitely going to try this -- I've just got to make sure I've got the instructions clear in my head first.

THANKS!

[LyndaJ]

I know what I'm doing this weekend!! Thank-you

[Teri.p]

How very clever! I'm going to give it a go this afternoon.

Teri P

[glassbead]

Thanks to all of you. Mary, good way to put it succinctly. I don't know about the document opening problem- it's just in word, if that helps. Maybe I could email it to you?

I was tempted to call these 'mind meld beads'. It's what happens when I really want to make something work, but it's just not happening. It reminds me of a trip to a foreign country where I couldn't understand the language, and I started wanting to speak French (at which I am NOT fluent). I thought it was pretty weird until I mentioned it to my daughter and she was having the same experience. It seems the mind will do anything to try and communicate!

Laurie

[Vicki B.]

Very interesting! Please others post your experiments with this method!

[glassbead]

Thanks to all of you for looking- hope you'll have some pics to post soon. I just know someone will run with this.

[Beadbug]

Nice job but we need to hire you a photographer. I learn much better by photos but I do think I followed the short version. Thanks for the Tut.

[Marjo]

Originally Posted by pittypat

I would love to try this, but can't open the doc....can some nice torcher put this in a pdf document??? please???

Thanks, pat

Here are the diagrams for those who couldn't open the file. I did a screenshot with my mac widget:

[glassbead]

Thanks y'all. I need to see if I can figure out how to make my garage sale camera work! Hope you'll have some pics soon.

[Moth]

I'd never made one of those star beads before and I figured I'd see how I did making one of those before I tried this tutorial with one. So, I made my very first star bead today. Next thing I'll try is your tutorial and I promise to show pictures!!!

~~Mary

[Moth]

I went out to make these this morning and the thunderstorms started up. The forecast for the day is just scattered thunderstorms, no severe weather watches or anything, BUT I know that the minute I get this bead into the kiln the power will go out and it will get ruined. I also had all the canes pulled for the van gogh bead I want to try and that's going to have to wait too. Stinking thunderstorms.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

~~Mary

[glassbead]

I'm glad you'll finally be trying a star. I have found it fun to do those on a large mandrel. When I made these beads, I didn't actually think of them so much as stars as just dots on dots. When you do a star, often the lower dots will be a bit bigger that the upper dots. Now I can't even remember whether that was true when I made these or not. I wish it would rain here!! It's been about 100 for about 30 days, so that has slowed down the experimental stuff-mostly I've just been making what I need most. Once we get a break I'll try again.

[glassbead]

Ok, so has anyone tried this and succeeded? I really need to go back and do it all again. Maybe (really) now that I'm kind of on break from what I NEED to make, I can try again!