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Making Ribbon Cane:

Step by Step Bead Making Photos:

The torch shown is called a minor bench burner, and is the main tool used for making our beads.  It burns propane and oxygen in a surface mix torch head.	This is the first gather of glass winding on to the steel mandrel, which has been coated with a release agent.  When finished, the bead will come off the mandrel and leave a hole.
A graphite paddle is used to roll the soft glass into a barrel shape.  Only a few simple tools are used to help shape most beads.  Many beads require no tools at all; just steady hands, and a practiced eye.	A common technique is the addition of dots of glass that will form "eyes" or raised bumps.  This goes back hundreds of years.  The glass being worked is in long rods, this one being white.
The white glass was melted in smooth, and now black glass is added to the center of each spot.  The bead is again heated until smooth.	Here a stringer of goldstone is laid down weaving around the "eyes".  Goldstone is made of copper crystals suspended in glass, and was often used in antique bead designs.
Here the bead has again been marvered to form a smooth barrel.  The design pattern is now complete, and this could be a finished  bead.  Actually, a bead could stop with just the first gather of glass, or continue for hours and hundreds of steps!	Often modern beads are coated with a final layer of clear glass in a technique known as casing.  This will enhance and magnify the bare bead design, but requires some skill to be done well.  Air bubbles trapped in the glass, and smearing the base bead are to be avoided in this step.
One more roll on the marver to clean up and finish this bead.  The final step at the torch is a quick flame polish that will make a great looking bead.	Elapsed time at the torch for a bead like this would be 5 to 10 minutes.  It will now go directly into a hot kiln to go through an annealing cycle.  This is critical to producing  a quality piece of torch worked glass that will last a lifetime!