Getting down to business...

Whew!  Summer is over and I'm back to my blog.  After my last post I continued learning how to make beads with my new torch and oxygen concentrator, and now I'm feeling fairly comfortable with both.  The Nortel Minor is just a dream to work with and I'm not afraid of it anymore.  I find myself just turning it on and running with it.  It's a great feeling to have decent tools.

That's a CG Beadroller living next to my torch!

I'm experimenting with different bead designs.  I've added raised flowers to my repertoire and my raised scrollwork designs are actually getting better every time I make them.  Also, I've made a few cube beads, which look pretty cool with melted-in scrollwork.  Someone even said the design looked kind of Hawaiian, so that'll be something I have to work on to perfect so I can add it to my stock.  Here is a set I made last week:

 

The search for the perfect glass organization method continues, and now that search has extended to beads.  I'm making so many beads that I'm having trouble keeping up with it.  But this problem is a great opportunity to get more of my sh*t in gear so I have a better and easier time when I finally start selling my beads.  To help me keep track of what colors are in each bead, I got price tags on strings to attach to them, and then I ordered a cardboard box for storing collectible cards in order to have a place to keep all the beads.  When that comes in I'll put it all together and take some pictures. Here's what I have so far, but I only have one of those plastic trays and the cardboard box was cheaper than the trays for the number of beads I could keep in it.

 

As far as the glass rods are concerned, I've been doing pretty well with a milk crate full of 1.5 inch PVC pipe cut to 10 inch lengths.  I did just order another 8 and a half pounds of glass, so it will be interesting trying to fit that in, but that's what the debit card is for - more PVC & more milk crates.  I'm looking forward to getting this new glass but after last time, spending HOURS tagging all the glass I currently had with labels, I'm thinking this next batch of glass will only be spot tagged.  That was way too much work!

See all the little tags?  Crazy tags!  LOTS OF CRAZY LITTLE TAGS!!! :)

Development on the homemade mailbox kiln has ground to a halt.  We have all the hardware we need, kiln brick, we even cut the kiln door open, but putting it all together has been really difficult.  I don't know why, but I just don't have patience for this project, probably because it feels like it will be impossible to get it done right.  The hardest part has been drilling through the box from the top to install the element support wire.  We broke two drill bits.  Yeah, they're crappy drill bits from Harbor Freight, but after spending all day slaving over the kiln then having this happen, I just threw up my hands in disgust.  Every step just felt harder than it should have been.  Luckily, we didn't spend a lot of money, just $12 for the mailbox and a few bucks for the hardware.  I don't like to give up on projects, but I truly believe this mailbox kiln has me beat.

So, what do we do when we can't make something?  We either do without -- which has become impossible because my bead-breakage rate has increased now that I'm making more complicated beads -- or we pull out the debit card and buy something:  Devardi's Professional Mini Bead Annealer.  Looks like a god-send, I'm really looking forward to it.  It's a curling iron warmer that has some extra electronics added to it to help you control the temperature and bring the temp of your beads down slowly enough to anneal them.  Priced at $76 (plus $15 shipping), it seems too good to be true, but I bought one and I'm going to make it work for me.

It's here! It's here!

My Devilbiss 515 oxy-con finally arrived, and after a little hiccup we got it up and running with my new Nortel Minor torch that arrived a few weeks ago.

OMG this is such a world of difference, so nice! I love how quickly the glass melts, and with the new CG Beadroller I picked up, (the Donut Spacers, BR-1301), I can make a bunch of spacers quick and easy.  You can see it hiding behind the torch in the above picture.

While I was waiting for the the oxy-con to arrive, I put together a glass storage rack for all the new glass I've been acquiring, and the glass cataloging project has continued.

I've changed the catalog system a bit, but I'm hoping the new system will work better. Those sharpie numbers I wrote on that batch of sample beads I showed a picture of earlier all got rubbed off, so I decided to use little little price tags on strings to thread through the bead. This way, I can label every bead I make so I don't forget what colors I used on them.  Now that I've got the torch and oxy-con set up I've started making sample beads of all the colors of glass I have.  Yeah, still OCD about stuff like that.  Maybe I should seek help. :^)

I'm really happy with the first results I've had with the new setup.  The Minor burns so clean and hot that I haven't had any trouble with soot, glass burning or bubbles.  I was even able to get Electric Yellow and Carnelian Opal to strike!  I've heard people say that compared to an oxy/fuel torch the colors you get on a Hot Head are duller and the glass is less shiny, and I think I've actually seen that about the "shininess".  I know when I'm taking the beads off the mandrel, the new beads are more slippery, even when I'm using a towel.

Since today is Sunday, my husband and daughter are going to a friend's house to give me some free time to torch, and I'm going to see what I can do about practicing stringer work.  Yup, I'm obsessed with perfecting my stringer work, and now with the hotter Minor it's like I have to learn how to make beads all over again.

Anticipation... is keepin' me way-ay-ay-tin!

I haven't torched in a few days, and while I'm craving gettin' my torch on, I'm also looking forward to having a new torch, with oxygen, and hot fire, and melty glass, and happy happy happy beads!  Well, technically, in the popular vernacular a "happy bead" is a bead that's been properly annealed, but I'm sure they're much happier beads to begin with if they're made an an oxy/propane torch instead of a Hot Head.  I can't wait to get my hand on that thing and just mold the glass rods into beads in a perfect oxygen rich flame.

And once we get the torch up and running, I'll start making so many beads I'll have to get the kiln electrified, 'cause I don't think that Jon is going to be none too eager to put a plumber's torch in that thing again.  Considering what happened the last time, I wouldn't blame him either.  I'll test my theory tomorrow and push for annealing the batch we were going to anneal last week.  We'll see if we can get to Ace Hardware early enough to buy a good hose clamp, so we don't have a repeat of last week's debacle.

The update for today on "the project" is a picture showing what I decided to do to label my beads.  I've heard of people using little price tags on strings, or organizing them in boxes, or even writing up note cards with pictures  (which sounds kind of like the thing I would do), but I decided on a more direct approach.  It all starts with a numbering system.

I have assigned a number to each color of glass I have.  The assignation is random, I just picked up a glass and said, "You will be #1."  I marked it with a sharpie (which I'm discovering will need some reworking because the sharpie rubs off if you handle the rod too much) and pulled a stringer or two from it, then marked the stringers with a piece of tape on the end (like a flag) and numbered with the same number.  Then I made a grid:

1,2	1,3	1,4	1,5
2,1	2,3	2,4	2,5
3,1	3,2	3,4	3,5
4,1	4,2	4,3	4,5
5,1	5,2	5,3	5,4

If I were (un)lucky enough to only have 5 colors of glass, I would be making 20 beads (ah, the bliss!).  The first number is the color of the base bead and the second is the color of the stringer.  But, using the grid as a checklist only helps if you can then subsequently identify the beads you've made against the chart.  That's where the next picture comes in.  I'm so clever!  I made this image so large so you could see the detail.

The sharpie works to mark the glass.  You'll see B16 on the bottom; that means that the base bead is made with color 16.  On the top you'll see an S5; that means that the bead was decorated with stringer in color 5.  These are the same beads I showed pictures of the other day at my friend's house.  Two colors of beads, and 8 colors of stringer.

And now, before the next huge batch of glass comes in, I'm gonna go organize the glass I already have.  Baby and Hubby are asleep, so I get my "me time" -- starting at 11:19pm.  Oh yay.

I feel like I'm in a Disney movie...

Mini? Cricket? Minor?  Which torch do I get?!?

So, it all started a couple days ago when I played on my friend's Nortel Minor.  I probably mentioned it, and if I didn't, too bad.  I have been getting impatient with my Hot Head because it's so damn slow to melt anything because it's so cold.  It doesn't have an oxygen line, just air intake vents on the side, so it doesn't have the FLAMING POWER OF O2 and it doesn't get hot enough to burn a burger let alone melt glass.  Well, that's not exactly true, but it does take a firk-ding-blast long time!  I can't make a tiny spacer in less than 8 minutes.

After working on the Minor (and the fire) I was complaining to someone on LWE chat about the Hot Head and they told me there was a bulk buy going on in the LWE garage sale forum for GTT Crickets and Bobcats.  Ok, to make a long story short, I decided I wanted a Cricket, and then started discussing oxygen tanks with my hubby.  After a few hours of that I started researching oxygen concentrators.  This long story isn't getting any shorter, is it?  To make a really long story only kinda short, today, after much angsting, I offered to buy someone's new Nortel Minor, oxygen concentrator, and the regulator and hoses to go with.

If you really want to know all the angsty twists and turns it took me to get there, then you're sicker than I am.

I'll be sending my father-in-law over to the seller's house tomorrow to pick those up.  Oh, pick them up you say?  Yeah, the seller doesn't want to go through the hassle of shipping, and the oxycon itself is such a great deal, and my FIL lives in the same town, that he's kindly agreed to pick the stuff up for us and ship it himself.  Isn't he a great guy!