Congratulations to Amy Waldman Smith!

Everyone at beadFX is proud of Amy Waldman Smith, one of beadFX's lampwork instructors!

FIRST PLACE WINNER: Bead Dreams 2012 - Lampwork Beads

Cool Blue Ottoman Beads

Amy has been making glass beads since 2001 and was first asked to teach beadmaking in 2003 and has been teaching on a regular basis ever since. Amy’s attention to detail, form and symmetry are the foundations of her work. Intrigued by the possibilities of creating in glass, Amy’s work continues to evolve and change. Amy’s beads have been seen in numerous exhibits across North America and can be found in publications including 1000 Glass Beads, The Complete Book of Glass Beadmaking, encase It! and The Flow Magazine. 

 A recent article about Amy in the most recent issue of Hot Glass.

 Keep an eye on the class calendar for upcoming classes with Amy. 

You can also visit her website at www.amywaldmansmith.com to view her teaching schedule.

Stainless Steel Artistic Wire for Lampworking

You could call them headpins - but - um - big much?

 Uh, yeah - everything I make is super-sized.

Ok - the point is not the glass-tipped tiny headpins, I was thinking more of making things on the ends of wire and twisting them into bunches. Bugs, flowers, birds, etc. Anyway - what I wanted to find out was, could I use the new Stainless Steel Wire from Artistic wire in the flame and melt glass onto it.

Was it, in fact, real stainless steel?

First up, I emailed Artistic Wire and asked them if it was really stainless steel, or was that just the name of the colour. I got a response within hours, and they confirmed that their Stainless Steel wire is, in fact, Stainless Steel. (Also, their Brass is really brass, and everything else has a copper core.) I also know, from previous experience, that most of their products have a thin nylon coating to prevent tarnishing - but I didn't ask about that.


I just cut some lengths and started working in the flame.


No noxious fumes or ghastly odors, so we seem to be good on the no-coating front.

Next lesson learned was that  the skinny, and not completely straight wires are tough to hold, and just about impossible to rotate in the hand. I wound up winding the glass around the wire, instead of holding the rod in one place and rotating the wire.You know, exactly what will get you into oodles of trouble if you try to make beads that way.

I then figured out that I could hold the wires in my rod grabber, and that was more comfortable. The wires still weren't straight - so rotating was now possible, but pointless.

But wrapping the glass around the wire works fine.

How to:

1. Cut your lengths of wire
2. Put a piece of wire into the rod holder if you have one
3. Heat the end of the wire to a light glow (you can melt through the wire, just like a skinny mandrel, if you work at it, but light heating is fine.)
4. Make a gather
5. Touch the gather down on the wire, in from the end of the wire
6. Wind the glass around the wire, wrapping around until you run out of glass or it goes stiff. 
7. Heat the glass on the wire to smooth
8. Repeat until you have a reasonable size that you like, and have worked your way over to the end of the wire
9. Build some glass out on the end - covering the end of the wire and building up a cap
10. Roll in a frit if you like, and melt in
11. I heated these and pointed the far end of the wire at the ceiling to let the glass droop into a nice droplet. 
12. Put the finished "headpin" into the kiln. I put on gloves, reach into the kiln with the wire still in the rod grabber, and let it go onto the floor of the kiln. 
13. Repeat

They are fun, easy, and forgiving. You can mash the glass with some of your fancy mashers. Hey - how about using some of those brass presses that you have hanging around?

So, the verdict is, "Yes - it is real stainless steel and you can use it in the flame." Kewel.

 It is for sale here:


Artistic Wire - 18 gauge Round Wire - Stainless Steel (Spool)
Artistic Wire - 20 gauge Round Wire - Stainless Steel (Spool)
Artistic Wire - 22 gauge Round Wire - Stainless Steel (Spool)
Artistic Wire - 24 gauge Round Wire - Stainless Steel (Spool)
Artistic Wire - 26 gauge Round Wire - Stainless Steel (Spool)

Results of Fusing Experiment

Last Monday - lovely sunny holiday Monday - I posted about experimenting with melting some of my broken beads down into cabochons.

I have to admit, the results are quite lovely!

Would these not make awesome rings? Hmm - bezel, shank. I might have to dig out the silver smithing stuff!

Lampwork Studio Progress

A number of folks have asked about the progress of the lampwork studio - especially after they have seen the store and how exciting that is!

It looks like it will be another week for the lampwork studio - here is a picture of how it looked at the beginning of last week. The vent hoods have been hung - and since then - the torches have been mounted on the tables and the new table covered in metal.

The "booster" - that blue box temporarily sitting on the end of the table in the picture - has been relocated into the next room so that - joy of joys! - we won't have to listen to it anymore!

It has been the ventilation that has been taking up most of time in this renovation - getting the hoods moved from the old location, getting holes cut in the roof (always a little traumatic) - and having the hoods ducted and hooked up. After that is finished - things should roll along quickly!

We'll be starting out with 8 torches - 2 more than we had before - and adding 4 more in the future. This will allow us to accommodate more people - especially for classes and guest instructors!

I know a lot of you are really looking forward to getting back to the torch and getting your next lampworking fix! Should be soon now!