How durable and strong can a unannealed bead be ?

[Sylvie D.]

First, let me say that I carefully anneal all my beads in a digitally controlled kiln.

In France , the bead movement has started only a few years ago, and to this day, there is still no books on lampworking in French. So beginners have only two available « ressources »: classes and the french beadmakers forum.

I have explained at length what annealing is all about, some members totally supported my point, some have stated that for small beads vermiculite or warm ashes in a crock pot work just as well and reported that they didn’t experience any breakage… So I don’t think that everybody (espacially newbies) are convinced that if you want to sell your beads, you have to anneal them first.

So my question are; Is there something I could say to help them see the differece between small (0.5 to 0.7 inch) annealed beads and small beads that have been placed in warm ashes. How durable and strong can an unannealed bead be ? If it hasn’t broken after six months, is it safe to say that it is durable ?

[suzanne]

Sylvie, we are experiencing the same thing here in the Netherlands. A lot of people are convinced there is no need to anneal beads.It's never safe to say a non-annealed bead is durable in my opinion because no matter how small the bead is, there will be stress in that particular bead , and the only way to release that stress in a bead is to anneal it. You could tell them the stress is visible with a special lens, I'll have to look up what the name of that thing is, there has been a topic about it a while ago.

Thing is there will always be people who will claim they never had breakage and thusfor annealing is not nescessairy. I just happen to differ with them and will not take the risk of someone getting hurt because I did not anneal my beads properly

Suzanne

[suzanne]

the name of the light thingie is a polariscope

[Sylvie D.]

Thanks Suzanne...

Here is a picture I've just found: 2 clear Effetre beads seen through a polariscope. The bead on the left was cooled in vermiculite and the bead on the right was kiln annealed. You can see the difference! If it is annealed, most of the tensions are gone and through a polariscope the transparency of the bead is complete. In the bead on the left, the tensions are still there, since it was cooled in vermiculite and so if you look through a polaricope you can see them: the bead is not completely transparent there are dark and bright spots.


But some still don't see a problem with that because if the bead doesn't brake after 6 months or even more, why bother? Tensions are not something tangible.

[Beadbug]

This is also an isue to teach to the purchasers of beads. If they understand that Annealing is important they will look for this in the sale. Price should also be reflected in no annealed beads.

[Hothead Beads]

I anneal all of my beads, whether I sell them or not. Prior to getting a kiln, in my first few months, I stuck the beads in a fiber blanket. This was six years ago and my first beads still haven't broken. Don't get me wrong, I think all beads should be annealed properly, but I must say that my first beads are still in one piece.

[nklt0]

I think the best way to show the effect of un-annealing will be Prince Rupert's drop. A round object (bead in our case) is structurally very strong despite the internal stress. However a slightest mark on the bead will cause catastrophic failure of the bead. So, if the bead is going to be carefully stored and handled, it's no problem if the object is small and smoothly rounded. But any rough handling will equal to crack!

So, it really up to the individual how much risk they want to take with their bead or jewelery. IMHO, the risk is just too great!

here's a few links on this topic
http://www.cmog.org/index.asp?pageId=735
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V2eC...eature=related

HTH

Cheers
Nancy

[beadysam]

If you get in touch with RedHotSal http://www.lampworkbeads.co.uk/ she has some polarising film that she sells quite cheaply. She's also very good at explaining stuff like that. You may also want to point people to the www.frit-happens.co.uk forum where we have loads or European lampworkers....

[lunamoonshadow]

You can always ask them the wonderful question: "if you're selling it under your name, how secure are you that when it spontaneously breaks, in a year, in three years, whenever & someone's child slices their fingers open with it, that your insurance policy is going to cover you if you've become a well-known bead-seller at that time & the person you sold it to decides to sue you for faulty workmanship & you can't prove you took *every* known-at-the-time precaution to produce the best possible product?"
To me, that includes annealing--even if that's batch annealing in someone else's kiln!

[lampwork.dk]

when i have classes in fusing or lampworking my main point is to explain stress in glass and how importen it is to annealet the glass, some times i make som glass pendant and fire it op to 810 cencius and then open the oven to let them se what is happining when you dont do the annealering right, many pepole don't understand that the stress in glass can lay thery for many years without break and the one day it may be a thonderstorm ( low presur) and the glass break. But back to the quistion, well im a hobby viking as well in the summer time and make vikingbeads, the vikings did't had that kind of annealering method as we have today, they put the beads in sand, and well ther have been found beads who is from 800 ac and they are still hole, and when i make vikingbeads on a markedsplace i only have sand/vermakulite becorse it has to be just as they did't in the times of the vikings, and i have the same beads in my viking kostym and they are okay.
But all i sell normaly i my shop i do anneale in a controlled kiln.

[NightCat]

I dunno... I mean, people have been making glass beads in one form or another for what? 3,000 years? I think beadmakers using kilns is something that has only happened in the last 20 years.

I'm just sayin' keep some perspective.

Kilns are good. Kilns are necessary if you want to be taken seriously. I just think it gets overblown sometimes. It gets forgotten that literally ship loads of beads have been sent around the world for hundreds of years and those beads were not, in the modern since, annealed.



~R

[lunamoonshadow]

Yes, well just remember, lawyers & lawsuits are new "inventions" too
It all comes down to--if you are selling, just how much RISK are YOU willing to take? And how much are you willing to gamble that it never comes back to bite you in the behind? Kinda like those who dodge on the tax issues. Me? I'm not willing to take the risk, or make the gambles!

[glassactcc]

I do agree with this. I anneal all of my beads properly because it is the right thing to do. I just have to say this. I have beads that I have made 7 years ago that I wear on a bracelet that I think get alot of abuse. I have never had one break. I also have made marbles for myself and family before I had a kiln, and not one of them have broken either. I don't know the answer but I do know that if you are selling beads, they must be annealed.

Originally Posted by NightCat

I dunno... I mean, people have been making glass beads in one form or another for what? 3,000 years? I think beadmakers using kilns is something that has only happened in the last 20 years.

I'm just sayin' keep some perspective.

Kilns are good. Kilns are necessary if you want to be taken seriously. I just think it gets overblown sometimes. It gets forgotten that literally ship loads of beads have been sent around the world for hundreds of years and those beads were not, in the modern since, annealed.



~R

[FlameFilly]

Originally Posted by NightCat

I dunno... I mean, people have been making glass beads in one form or another for what? 3,000 years? I think beadmakers using kilns is something that has only happened in the last 20 years.

I'm just sayin' keep some perspective.

Kilns are good. Kilns are necessary if you want to be taken seriously. I just think it gets overblown sometimes. It gets forgotten that literally ship loads of beads have been sent around the world for hundreds of years and those beads were not, in the modern since, annealed.



~R

I watched a video of bead makers in Turkey making beads the ancient way and they did anneal them. They had a crude small furnace they sat in front of and long story short they popped beads off into a side chamber of their furnace and at they end of the day closed off the chamber and let the beads cool slowly till morning. So those beads were annealed in some way.

[Dasi]

I would drop 5 annealed beads on concrete. Then drop 5 non annealed beads..... My guess is they will see the difference real quick....

I sometimes do color run test beads in the evenings when my kiln is already ramping down. I will not open my kiln at any temp below 900 so I just let them cool in a blanket. These beads are not used for anything but color tests..... NEVER sold.. and I have bounced some on the concrete for students to see the difference.... they almost always break. While annealed bounce and bounce..... Sometimes they have nicks on them....


Try it out and I bet you will find the same results..... Waste 30 minutes making 6-10 beads.... mix colors.. transparents and opaques.... White= soft and cobalt trans= hard and do a half and half bead.... one side and the other side..... then see how they hold up....... LOL.... they don't.....

[Sylvie D.]

Thanks everybody for your inputs. I didn't know about the Corning museum links. And the concrete floor test seems like a good one (When I do shows and fairs, I usually carry a bunch of annealed test beads and I throw them on the floor or ask my customers to do it, it is fun and it is always a good way to talk about quality lampwork).

I'm going to translate most of what you've said into french. I hope this will make a difference: in the end, it will be their choice to make. I just wanted to help them make a decision based on facts not on rumors, "rules", not even ethics... just facts.

My choice is and will remain: to anneal no matter what.

Thanks again!

[LyndaJ]

I just unintentionally tested this a couple days ago.

I had some friends over, looking at some of my beads, and making jewelry. When I went to clean up, one of the bead containers spilled ~12". I had some un-annealed test beads that broke into pieces. I lost one eye of a giraffe heat, and the ear of a cat. None of the annealed beads (without sticky-outy parts) broke, and all of the un-anealed ones did.

[SteveWright]

We purchased a bead from a well known bead maker 15 years ago, as they were becoming famous. Over two years later, sitting in a padded storage container, it broke into a hundred pieces. We paid a lot for it at the time. The beadmaker will always be associated with sloppy work in my mind. The beadmaker never heard from us but the gallery did. Their reputations was is important to them.

There is no controversy here. If a glass artist is not willing to anneal their product, they either don't believe it is necessary, or do not have the equipment to do it right. When was the last time you saw a glass object being made, where it did not go directly into an annealing oven.

If you know someone who does not anneal their work, suggest they include in the sales literature: These beads are not annealed.

It is perfectly fine with me if someone chooses not to anneal, I will always have a business advantage over them. I've found that the people willing to spend up for quality lampwork products are relatively well educated in glass buying.

Steve

[SteveWright]

Sylvie,

I got to thinking, if you speak and write French, as well as you write English, there might be a market for translated books. I would try to get in touch with Cindy Jenkins (Mike Frantz at Frantz Art Glass probably has a contact number).

Strike a deal to translate and market her books. Sounds lucrative.

A lampworker who can translate, and include the necessary nuance, sounds like a winning combination.

Steve

[theglasszone]

Hi Everyone:

Quick story to share - might be a little pertinent:

I've only taken one lampworking class, and the teacher took the first 2 hours of an all day class to discuss all the "scientific" elements of glass and beadmaking. She ended the morning lecture emphasizing the importance of annealing all your work by telling a story of a very famous Grecian Glass Urn that was in a museum in Europe - a priceless ancient object of art that was, of course, amazing!!! Even though the item was kept in a temperature controlled, pressure regulated sealed case, and even though it had survived thousands of years of the earth's elements, one day, out of nowhere, it completely shattered!!! This piece, quite obviously, had never been annealed and in spite of the test of time like none of us will ever see, this priceless piece was lost to the world because of non-annealing!

I say ANNEAL EVERYTHING - you never know when stress will take it's toll!

DeAnne in CA

[Jane P]

All I know is that as soon as I purchased my kiln and started annealing the beads directly from the flame, then my breakage dropped to practically nil. I was batch annealing before that, and nearly all my pressed beads and some of the round ones broke at one time or another. I am a firm believer in "direct from the flame" annealing.

[simvet02]

I've just made my first lampwork beads. I have a glass kiln (for fusing) and wonder if someon can give me a good program for annealing the beads. I have them in a fiber blanket right now so I would be taking them up from cold to annealing temps and then back down.

Thanks,
Jan

[Henrywashere]

Hi Jan,
What sort of glass are you using different glasses have different annealing schedules.

[simvet02]

I'm using COE 104 glass.

Jan

[wendbill]

This conversation is interesting.

My personal observations (due to having a tile floor) are:

-If my beads are round or spacer shaped, they will survive being dropped on a tile floor, annealed or not.
-Hollow beads survive being dropped on a tile floor annealed or not.
-Sculptural beads whether annealed or not do not survive a drop on a tile floor.
-Pressed beads, bicone beads have an 80% chance of breaking or chipping if dropped regardless of whether they were annealed or not.
-Beads that contain inclusions like silver are more likely to spontaneously crack if not annealed, or crack if dropped whether annealed or not.

The thing I don't understand about the concrete floor test that people use - is that if they have thrown beads on a floor to prove a point about annealing versus non annealing, is that they have just introduced stress into the bead by chucking it at the floor.

[beadysam]

A lot of people pop them in the freezer to see if they'll crack - never tried it myself.
I wouldn't risk the concrete test, it would be too easy to chip an otherwise perfectly sound bead, thus making it useless. They are glass after all....

[Sylvie D.]

My personal observations (due to having a tile floor) are:

-If my beads are round or spacer shaped, they will survive being dropped on a tile floor, annealed or not.
-Hollow beads survive being dropped on a tile floor annealed or not.
-Sculptural beads whether annealed or not do not survive a drop on a tile floor.
-Pressed beads, bicone beads have an 80% chance of breaking or chipping if dropped regardless of whether they were annealed or not.
-Beads that contain inclusions like silver are more likely to spontaneously crack if not annealed, or crack if dropped whether annealed or not.

As I see it, annealing makes the beads (or any glass pieces) durable and strong.
Wendbill, if, in your experience, it doesn't make any difference, why do you anneal your beads, or why would you recommend a newbie to invest a lot of money in a kiln?
Please don't take this wrong, I'm just being curious, because they are very few experience beadmakers right now in France, and it's just difficult to advise people to buy an expensive piece of equiment just by saying: well, I was taught so, or every famous / experiences beadmaker do so, or it is the right thing to do, or it will releave stress from the glass, but if you don't anneal your beads, they will be just as strong....

[suzanne]

We purchased a bead from a well known bead maker 15 years ago, as they were becoming famous. Over two years later, sitting in a padded storage container, it broke into a hundred pieces

I am really wondering if this is an annealing issue. When beads are not annealed they will break right through the middle along the mandrelhole, not in 100 pieces. This is what I teach my students, how to recognize different type of cracks. Am I wrong here? If so I'd love to know cause that way I can teach them the right thing.

The thing I don't understand about the concrete floor test that people use - is that if they have thrown beads on a floor to prove a point about annealing versus non annealing, is that they have just introduced stress into the bead by chucking it at the floor.

How can you induce thermal stress into a bead by dropping it on the floor?
When a bead is not annealed, the stress is already in that particular bead and will most likely crack due to thermal-induced stress. When I drop an annealed bead on a concrete floor chances are it will chip, not cause it's not annealed properly but cause of the fact it's still a glass bead.

I guess what I am trying to say is thermal stress can not be induced by dropping it on a floor, the stress has to be in that bead already due to poor or no annealing at all.

( that's what I always thought so please correct me if I am wrong)

[wendbill]

Originally Posted by suzanne

How can you induce thermal stress into a bead by dropping it on the floor?
When a bead is not annealed, the stress is already in that particular bead and will most likely crack due to thermal-induced stress. When I drop an annealed bead on a concrete floor chances are it will chip, not cause it's not annealed properly but cause of the fact it's still a glass bead.

I guess what I am trying to say is thermal stress can not be induced by dropping it on a floor, the stress has to be in that bead already due to poor or no annealing at all.

( that's what I always thought so please correct me if I am wrong)

I don't think you're inducing thermal stress into a bead by dropping it on a floor but you are inducing stress back into the bead.

A lot of people seem to have a view that if you have annealed your beads it makes them indestructible - which is not true. It dramatically improves their long term survival but it does not make them indestructible.

I remember someone recently saying that a glass pyrex jug that they had had and used for years, suddenly broke the last time they used it. The conclusion they drew was that "it must not have been annealed properly originally". The conclusion I would have drawn is that all the knocks and temperature varations it would have received over the years would have weakened the glass.

Out of curiousity has anyone ever looked at two annealed beads with one dropped and one not? I'd be interested if stress would show up in the dropped one.

[suzanne]

I'll drop two annealed beads on the floor but I can tell you right now... they will be damaged cause they are still glass lol