Lampworking

Back in feb I went to the Essex bead fair and bought myself new beadmaking equipment. It hadn't taken me long to get fed up with Mapp gas and after running out of bottle 2 I realised it was going to be more economical to buy the proper tubing and regulator so I could use a full size bottle. Who knew that this would be so tricky though? I took myself to b&q and bought a mini bottle thinking it would make my life easier as it was small enough to carry, yep I'm a little weakling ;) however I'd not banked on the fact the fittings didn't go with my regulator!!! It took several hrs to realise it though and a few fb messages, tweets and phonecalls! Then good old dad came to the rescue telling me I had a bottle of propane in the shed!!! Typical huh.

This eve I finally got round to a lengthy play on the new equipment and refreshed a few basic skills of dotting before giving a new implosion bead a go. I saw it demonstrated a few wks back at a lampwork day at Glass From the Past in Billericay. The 1st go was too small to see the full effect and the 2nd didn't attach properly to the mandrel :( you can see it in the picture as a large disk with dots.

Oh well now for try number 3 as my mandrels are now ready to go again :)