jewelry or chime beads: how to make holes

Marge B · Post by **Marge B** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 1:23 pm

After all the above post, I haven't read one person mention "hi-fire wire". If you want to fire the bead with the wire in it, thats the way to go. I buy it in thin for jewelry and heavy for hangers. It does fire out to a black that has to be cleaned with alco. and a Q-tip. I believe you can get it at any GOOD (or well stocked) fusing center. I wish I could tell who, but it's been a while since I bought any (stocked up when I did).
This may not be what your looking for, but it is another solution. Marge B.

vidrio · Post by **vidrio** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 10:08 am

Hi,

Have you had any luck with fiber board and beads? I'd like to try.

Right now I'm trying to get holes into medallion shapes for jewelry. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Vidrio

Marge B · Post by **Marge B** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 1:56 pm

Yes I have. Not so much fiber board, but I've used 1/8" and 1/4" fiber paper. Just yesterday I fired a layer (or a stack) of six - 1/4" fiber papers to make a napkin ring. Needs to be trimed and fired polished, but it does work. I've also used the 1/4" fiber paper to make holes along the back of necklace pieces for the chain to run through.

Hope I helped and good luck - Marge

Melissa Terman · Post by **Melissa Terman** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 4:46 pm

regarding the hi-fire wire. Are you saying that the wire burns out? If that's true, is it toxic because I fire in my home. Is there any other info for a first timer (with wire that is).

Melissa

jerry flanary · Post by **jerry flanary** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:02 pm

A frequently overlooked reaming tool- used guitar strings. Cheap from the right people;)

Marge B · Post by **Marge B** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 12:05 pm

Hi-fire wire, is just that - Hi-fire wire. So, no, It doesn't burn out.

Did you say that you using your kiln in the house?

Or is it in the garage, basment, etc.?
I hope/assume your using some of means of venting it? Please tell us yes.

Siw · Post by **Siw** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 12:19 pm

Did you say that you using your kiln in the house?

Or is it in the garage, basment, etc.?
I hope/assume your using some of means of venting it? Please tell us yes.[/quote]

What do you mean by venting? I use a spare bedroom upstairs for a studio, and "venting" in here is meaning open the window..... at least during summer

Not enough you mean???

Siw

Melissa Terman · Post by **Melissa Terman** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 10:10 pm

Why do I need to vent? I don't use any powders, fiber paper or thin fire or paints. I only use kiln wash, Elmer's glue and sometimes a dab of 3 in 1 oil. Please let me know if there is something else to consider.

Thanks,

Melissa

tom suter · Post by **tom suter** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 10:29 pm

For those of you that do use rods or wooded skewers my questions is what size chain can you get through those holes or are you using cord. I have been using fiber paper and recently got a little too narrow with it that my snake chain would not slip through. I just bought some wooded skewers but was wondering what to use to hang the pendants on.?

Tom White · Post by **Tom White** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 12:01 am

Tom, if your snake chain is flat rather than round perhaps you can find a balsa wood strip used for model making which will give you the right sized and shaped hole for your chain when the strip is coated with bead release. I like the bead release coated wood for making holes across pendants because by the time the glass softens you have only the weight of the bead release where the mandrel was, not the weight of the steel mandrel. I have known fusers who had to support the outboard ends of steel mandrels used this way to keep their holes located where they wanted them. In a hot fuse firing the steel mandrel can sink slightly into the bottom layer of glass, enough to move the location of the hole if the ends are not supported outside of the glass.

Geri, I have noticed no reduction effects when I have used coated wood mandrels to make holes across pendants but then I have never fired as many at one time as you must for production. If paper ignites at 451 F and most paper is made from wood fibers I would think that any carbon from the wood used would be completely burned by the time I close the lid and peepholes of the kiln at 1000 F. I make it a habit to vent my kiln to 1000 F If I have added anything organic like paint or wooden mandrels to the glass. I can only hope that some day I will be famous enough to have to worry about production enough to care about reducing in the kiln. Reducing frit used in off hand glass blowing and lamp working produces some very interesting results. I would like to set up a carbon dioxide feed into a small kiln some day to try to use these frits in a fusing operation. I have seen instructions to coat new kiln elements with a material that will seal them away from the atmosphere in the kiln to allow reduction firing of porcelain and stoneware glazes in an electric kiln without destroying the elements. Too many ideas, too little time.

Best wishes,
Tom in Texas

Sara · Post by **Sara** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 7:48 am

Tom White wrote:Geri, I have noticed no reduction effects when I have used coated wood mandrels to make holes across pendants but then I have never fired as many at one time as you must for production. If paper ignites at 451 F and most paper is made from wood fibers I would think that any carbon from the wood used would be completely burned by the time I close the lid and peepholes of the kiln at 1000 F. I make it a habit to vent my kiln to 1000 F If I have added anything organic like paint or wooden mandrels to the glass. I can only hope that some day I will be famous enough to have to worry about production enough to care about reducing in the kiln. Reducing frit used in off hand glass blowing and lamp working produces some very interesting results. I would like to set up a carbon dioxide feed into a small kiln some day to try to use these frits in a fusing operation. I have seen instructions to coat new kiln elements with a material that will seal them away from the atmosphere in the kiln to allow reduction firing of porcelain and stoneware glazes in an electric kiln without destroying the elements. Too many ideas, too little time.

Best wishes,
Tom in Texas

Tom in Texas . . . David and I will be at Houston doing the Quilt Market and Festival at the end of October, yikes. We'll be renting a car and 'maybe' will have a free day, wanna show a couple of old dogs your studio? do you do off-hand work? we do paperweights although are tiring of standing at the furnace and are slowing this part of our lives down. am very interested in the material you're talking about coating the elements with. We're developing some new ideas and this might do the trick for us.

We do vent our kilns although we have found that even with venting we can't use thinfire cause of the amount of binder vs. the size of our kilns when we add sandblasted elements into the mix and it smokes that sandblasted area really badly and forever. How many pendants are you talking at one time in the kiln? 10, 20, 50???? We do fill that 24" Jen Ken to the max and if we're doing pendants with holes usually it's an average of 100, charms it's about 400+ . . . it's more about wanting work less rather than anything else, therefore bigger kiln loads . . . when Donna and I talked about putting a hundred or more sticks in at a time we figured it would possible skew things again 'cause of the sandblasted glass elements.

Admittedly I'm afraid to try and usually am fairly adventuresome. Now I've got my gumption up and will experiment. of course if I do 5 or 10 there won't be a problem and I'll get my confidence up and then yikes . . .100+ ruined, that's what happened with the thin fire

By the by . . . Geri will scream when she reads the above . . . you couldn't get her to do production work on a bet.

she's the famous one.

Infamously,

Sara

Marge B · Post by **Marge B** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 1:09 pm

Venting by opening a window is good - but a small fan pulling more air out is even better - I can realy tell the difference when I turn the fan on.
And, yes I would do some sort of venting, even if you don't use paints, fiber paper, etc, etc. It's just a good habit to get into.
Marge

Melissa Terman · Post by **Melissa Terman** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 3:40 pm

If you're using wood to make your holes and you're venting at around 1000, when the wood burns out does it smoke?

Tom White · Post by **Tom White** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:02 am

Melissa, I am venting the kiln from startup unti 1000 F. Yes, there is some smoke from the wood before that temp.

Sara, sorry about calling you Geri. Yes, you are welcome to visit my studio if you have time while you are in Houston. Address is 1509 W. 34th. St., Houston 77018. Phone is 713 682 7858. Any others from the board are welcome any time I am there. Daffodil Deb has found her way there from the Lake Conroe area. The studio is mainly hobby ceramics with loads of greenware shapes on the shelves. I have made most of my slumping molds by modifying greenware shapes to work for glass slumping. Right now glass is secondary to clay for providing income but I am working to reverse that. I have not done offhand glass blowing myself but there is a very nice offhand studio a few miles from me, Houston Studio Glass. Check them out at http://www.houstonstudioglass.com I would be glad to contact Dick and Kathy to see if they will be at their studio when you are in Houston. Ellen Abbot is also located on my side of town. If you are not too tired perhaps we coulld get together for a meal one evening after the show closes. Our house is torn up with remodeling or I would invite you there but my wife would kill me dead if I invited anyone over the way it is now.

I have not used wooden mandrels with sandblasted items in the kiln so I cannot tell you how the smoke would affect them. With 100 pendants or 400+ charms in a kiln at once you are at a whole 'nother level from anything I have done. I guess the most I have done in one kiln would be about 5 or at most 10 in a load.

Best wishes,
Tom in Texas

kellyk · Post by **kellyk** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 9:56 pm

loeyart wrote: Chris, I know you are answering the other person...but since I am listening...where do you get diamond bits for drummels? Whenever I see a diamond bit it says "not for drilling". None are listed in the drummel catalog brochure. Loey

Loey, did you ever get a reply to this? When you're writing 'drummel' do you actually mean "Dremel"?? I've been looking for an appropriate drill bit source for short-distance drilling (1/4" max.), having found polymer clay to be a great temporary dam material...now to find a drill bit. I was very encouraged when I saw your question, but alas....no reply was to be found.

KellyK

Rebecca M. · Post by **Rebecca M.** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 11:10 pm

Check out the Triple Ripple bits at HIS Glassworks. That's just one kind and one place to get them. There are also diamond core drill bits for drilling holes in glass. A couple SG suppliers have them and I think Glastar makes one. If you go with the Tripple Ripple, you may need smaller collets for the dremel. Those you can get at anyplace that sells dremel.

WarmGlass.com

jewelry or chime beads: how to make holes

fiber and holes