There are many ways to make lampwork beads; this is just a brief description.

Lampwork beads are made from several types of glass. I use Moretti / Effetre, Vetrofond and Lauscha; all soft class with a COE of 104 (co-efficient of expansion). Using a minor bench burner, fueled by propane gas and oxygen, the glass rod is held through the flame.

Once the end of the glass rod is at a molten stage I touch the glass to a stainless steel rod, called a mandrel, which has been dipped in bead release to prevent the glass from sticking. This mandrel is what you spin your glass on to form a bead; it’s also what forms the hole through the center of the bead. On one end is your working bead and the other end you use as your handle, which you keep in a constant spinning motion. With tools and gravity you can form many shaped beads.

There are several techniques on pulling glass to make thinner diameters called stringers. These are used to paint decorations on your base bead.

Once your bead is finished you then have to anneal the glass in a kiln to release the stress, this will prevent your beads from cracking. Once the kiln is cooled back to room temperature you can take all your mandrels out to start the cleaning process. First you slide the bead off the mandrel with pliers then ream the hole to clean out the bead release and rinse in water.