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.

OMG I had so much fun!

I am fortunate to have a friend who has a great lampworking setup, and she invited me to come over today and play on her Nortel Minor Burner torch.  I currently have a Hot Head torch, and while satisfactory, it's very slow to melt glass and tends to have a reducing flame (since it only uses propane and "hopes" that the air intake holes on the side are sufficient for adding oxygen to the flame).  But, the Minor, wow!  I've played on her Minor before, but I hadn't had sufficient practice on my own torch or read enough online to really comprehend what kind of benefits I'd get from the Minor.  Today, though, I felt like I was owning the flame.  Like I could make it do for me anything I wanted.

I had planned to try to do some encasing today on the Minor since Hot Head's suck for encasing, but after the fire we had yesterday (a totally separate blog entry will have to be written up for that) I decided to take advantage of the Minor to start making beads for my project.  I still have a few stringer I need to pull, but I really wanted to get started on those beads.  AND... my friend has a CG BEADROLLER!  Whoohoo!  I actually got to play with the small donut roller the whole time, and yes, it is even better than I would hope. I was able to use it to size my beads while still molten so I could make consistently sized beads.  (I'm really bad at that.)  It was a dream to work with, and I'm going to order one as soon as I wake up in the morning.

Getting tired.  I wanted to say so much more but it will have to wait til morning.  But I will say this:

Watching the Minor's flame on the bead was like watching water smoothly carve a rock into the beautiful shape hiding beneath the surface.