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Over the last week or so, I've been frantically trying out different colours and types of glass both from bought Moretti rods and Bullseye ones together with all the various bits and bobs of stained glass left over from other projects, including Bullseye fusible glass and Spectrum fusible too. I've also looked at what in the house I could use to create different shapes in the glass before buying any presses or mashers. I've discovered that a good ridged barrel shape can be made from rolling a bead along a fish slice and a stainless steel paint scraper can be used with a marver to flatten a bead from front to back. At first I was disappointed that some of the paler colours such as pink and white streaky opaque or pale blue and white opaque came out smokey coloured as well as the oranges, greens and yellows but after trying to work further out from the flame of the Hothead, the colours stayed true. It does seem to take longer to make the bead though. I had contemplated getting an oxygen supply for the torch to improve the combustion but decided to try working further from the flame first of all. I'm glad I did as I've spent far too much money on glass and tools this month.
I won't bore you with pictures of the many bead examples I've tried, but here are two that seemed to come out a similar size so I quickly decided to make them into a pair of earings to prove to hubby that I could produce two beads that looked the same, (if you don't put them too closely together or measure them with a micrometer)

I made these beads today, trying to get two the same size and pattern. As I didn't have any head pins, just the wires and some silver very thin wire, I improvised and these are the result. When I get in some suitable silver wire etc. I will probably redo these as the twists of the wire are not very symetrical.