All of my beads are made using 'soft glass', usually the Italian glass known as Moretti or effetre. I sometimes use other types of glass from Germany, England and Czechoslovakia. Glass arrives in long thin rods about 39 inches long and roughly the diameter of a pencil. I cut these rods into thirds, clean them to remove dust and dirt, and store them sorted by color in a rack next to my torch. That way I can reach over any time I need another rod while I'm making beads.
			My work area consists of a table covered with a piece of stainless steel sheet, my minor bench burner torch, kiln, and various other small tools.
			Beads are made by melting the glass rods a little at a time and winding them onto steel rods called mandrels. These rods can be different thicknesses and this is what determines how big the hole in the bead will be. In order to keep the glass from sticking to the rods, they are dipped in a thick liquid ahead of time which is allowed to dry.
			I like to lay out the colors I plan to work with on my left (I'm left handed) and you can see in the picture of my work area that I have lots of thin glass stringers to the right. I do a lot of decorating with these thin stringers, which I have pulled from the original rods of glass. Once I'm ready to start I will light the torch and begin melting the end of the rod in the flame. In order to heat the glass evenly and keep it from dripping off of the rod once it becomes soft, I need to continuously spin the glass rod between my fingers until I'm ready to add it onto the mandrel.
			Beads are made from the inside out, so the first glass added to the mandrel will be the core of the bead and can be enhanced or covered up by the next layer, depending on how I want the bead to come out. I think this is one of the best things about lampwork beads - the amount of depth and decoration you can achieve in such a relatively small item!
			Once the glass is wrapped onto the mandrel, I have to heat it and keep it turning in the flame to make it round. At the same time, if I'm going to add another layer, I'm still melting and spinning the rod in my other hand. It's a little like rubbing your stomach while patting your head - but after you've been doing it for a while you forget about that part and can get down to making complex beads.
			Round beads are made without using any tools, but other shapes can be done by using hand tools and carefully rolling or pushing the glass around while it's still very hot. Lastly I apply surface decorations like lines, spirals, dots and swirls.Once these are melted in and I'm happy with the bead, it goes into the kiln. I spend anywhere from one to 45 minutes on a single bead, depending on if it's a small spacer bead or a large focal bead.
			My kiln will be 950? while I'm making beads and for a short time after the last bead goes in. Glass expands when it is heated and contracts as it cools. Letting the beads sit at this temperature removes any stress within the beads that can occur as different layers of glass are applied during the creation process. Once I'm done making beads for the day, I set the kiln to cool down at a controlled rate. This process is called annealing and ensures that the bead will not crack after it's made.
			Now the beads are done and ready to be taken off of the mandrels. Any residue from the bead release is cleaned out of the holes using a diamond tool. This is what a batch of beads looks like. I make 40 to 120 beads in one sitting. It can be addictive and relaxing, I barely notice the time going by. I'm usually planning the next bead before I've finished the one I'm working on!