I made over 30 beads today and at least half, if not more, STUCK TO THE MANDREL. Most of an entire set, a pansy, a special order bead and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay I didnt make a bird in a tree but if I had, it wouldve been stuck forever on a rod of stainless steel, never ever able to spread its wings and take flight. ;) I was so upset I wanted to cry. I decided instead to stick them all in the freezer and take a long, hot shower. As you can imagine, sitting at my bench all day, my arms extended while I wind molten glass around a mandrel, constantly spinning at shaping can leave the muscles in my upper body as stiff as a cold rod of glass. My sweet, sweet husband took pity on me, given my fragile state from having half my work of the day ruined, and gave me a glass of wine and a 30 minute massage. I felt much better physically and mentally after that, and set forth to try and rescue my beads from their icy steel prison. I readied my pliers and held a stuck bead with a rubberized oven mitt thingy I found in Mark Holts kitchen drawer, clamped down with the pliers just below the bead, and tugged. Nothing. Nada. Tugged some more. And some more. Harder, twist, Twist, TWIST and when that bead let go of its purchase, I nearly gave myself a black eye from the recoil. And I only had 16 or so more to go. Half hour later, I had empty mandrels and happy beads warming to room temperature. So, I undid all the good of the massage, my hands are killing me and Im quite sure Ill need a muscle relaxer tonight, but I DID NOT LOSE ONE BEAD I MADE TODAY!!! No waste, unless you count the one really ugly bead that didnt turn out the way I thought it would. And if youre wondering about freezing the stuck beads on the mandrel, its because the steel will contract and maybe, just maybe the glass will let go. (Cue Disneys Frozen theme song.) By the way, the pics I posted are of beads I made yesterday. Im going to hold off cleaning the ones from today. They made me wait so Ill make THEM wait. Give em time to sit in the corner and think about what they did! :)
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 22:58:09 +0000
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