How do you keep your stringer from spreading?

[crystalflipz]

What is the trick to getting those great thin lines on your beads. Even when I pull my stringers pretty thin, it seems to spread when I melt it into the bead. What am I doing wrong?
Carol

[Rhapsody Fire Beads]

Try reactive glass as it doesn't take over the bead, like copper green or turqouise, or encase your stringer in clear.
Hope that helps!

[prairieson]

You might try "winding" the stringer onto the bead instead of "laying it on". That is to say, instead of holding the bead stationary and laying down the stringer, try this. Get the stringer/gather hot, touch it to the bead, pull away slightly, and turn the mandrel/bead to apply the glass. You can get some hairline stringer that way.

I hope this makes at least a little sense, it looks so straightforward in my head, I'm afraid it's just not coming out that way, heheh.

[Dave]

There are several reason it could melt in, and some tricks you can try.

First, anytime your base bead is 'harder' than your stringer, the stringer is going to spread. All transparent glasses are harder than the opaque (assuming your using morretti), and are going to spread. Using a transparent stringer over an opaque base will 'sink in' more than it will spread.

Another reason could be that you're concentrating the heat on the stringer. When you do this, it has no choice but to melt down before the base and thus spread out as it has no where else to go.

Some tricks to keeping your opque stringer from spreading:
1) When melting in, heat the base bead near the stringer only and not the stringer directly. Move the bead back and forth with the flame following just outside the stringer, on each side. This will help you stringer to say cooler and thus harder while melting in.

2) Use step 1, then... Use a brass marver (graphite won't work as well) and touch it to your stringer to cool it, then quick 'push it in' to the heated bead. This works really well and can even give an embossed look.

3) Case your stringer with a transparent color. This will add some hardeness to it, also, it allows you to pull the opaque portion of the stringer thinner, so it when it does spread, it will still be thin. This also adds some 'specularity' to your opaque colors, but on an opaque base you will see some ghosting at the edges of the stringer where the transparent color is intenser.

4) Don't melt it in all the way.

Hope this helps.
-
Dave

[Kevan]

You know what makes great vines in encased beads is emerald green white core filligriana.

[kk5336]

Thanks everyone, this is great info and I can't wait to try each one.

Kathie

[JanMD]

Kathie -- There are some very good tips here! Bravo everyone! One more technique to try: make flat ribbon cane, where the central color is the color of the stringer that you want to lay down and the color on the two sides is the base color of your bead. You can pull some very very fine lines of color this way. Be careful to lay the ribbon cane down flat as you put it on the bead.

JanMD

[squid]

Sounds like someone needs to post a tutorial on pulling a ribbon cane.....

[yeepers]

I guess I'm wondering what you mean by spreading? I only really get spreading if I use something like ivory or black.

[Kevan]

I get spreading with pea green.

[Dave]

The softer the glass the more it spreads. In the morretti line, all white and ivory based colors will spread really fast because they don't take much heat. For example these colors spread really fast:

White Based colors (any that turn transparent when heated)
White (obviously)
Anise white
Pink
Dark Pink
Pea Green
etc.

Ivory Based Colors:
Ivory (Obviously)
Coral [and variations: Red Roof Tile, etc.]
Copper Green

When melting these in, make sure your base bead has lots of heat before adding the stringer. Then when you go to melt in it won't take much as much heat for the base to get soft, and heat ony the areas beside the stringer, not the stringer itself. That should help a lot.

-
Dave

[Curly Irish Girl]

Remember to work at the edge of the flame when you lay down that stringer and not in the flame...then rotate the bead out in the far end of the flame (coolest area) so the stringer is well seated but doesn't melt flat/in. Is that at all helpful?

[SpitFire]

Dave? Is that you?

Melissa

[JanMD]

Tutorial on flat ribbon cane!!? Heck. I just take a rod of color A and paint equal amounts of color B on either side of the last inch of rod A. (The challenge for me is to keep B from covering up and obscuring A as I paint B on. I tend to be messy.) See my sketch below.

Then heat and pull straight out. You end up with a small flat stringer with a hair-thin line of color A running up the middle of color B.

And so, if you lay this flat cane carefully on a base bead of color B, you get a very delicate line of color A.

This is not rocket science, my dear friends.

(For an incredibly complex illustrated tutorial on twisted ribbon cane (which is entirely different and made with a hefty amount of clear and is what you see inside of old timey marbles) see: http://www.flamewerks.com/tutorials/...p_tutorial.htm. You might (if you can follow it) stop before the clear goes on and pull straight out instead of twisting.)

JanMD

[Anne Ricketts]

Yes Melissa! It's Dave!! I finally convinced him to join!!!

[Dave]

Hi Melissa! Yep it's me! Blame Anne )

[SpitFire]

Good going Anne!

Dave - you will be a great asset around here. I hope to see you at the next LaBeadaLocas meeting. I hear that the Austin Fireflies get to see all the Gathering "goodies" before we do. I can hardly wait to see what you came home with.

Later, gator.

[Anne Ricketts]

Originally Posted by Dave

Hi Melissa! Yep it's me! Blame Anne )

Hee hee!!! Now go get your goodies on the show and tell!!!