Twisty Tutorial
Are You Ready to Be Twisted?
This tutorial was on my “old” MZ Glass website, and, figuring noone still used it, I opted not to migrate it to the new site when I upgraded a couple years ago. After seeing on message boards that beadmakers still wanted it, I dug up the tutorial, made a few edits, and reposted it! Please enjoy, and as always, feel free to contact me with questions!
Click here for a downloadable and print-friendly version of this tutorial.
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Supplies needed:
Base bead colors are up to you!
(In this bead I used 1 rod transparent gray, 1 sheet silver foil, and a mix of reduction frits)
1 rod clear, I prefer Lauscha
Marvering paddle
BBQ-style masher
Step 1:
Make a base bead in just about any style. For first practice beads at least, avoid colors that tend to bleed into surrounding colors (like intense black). Though the “twisty” look will be easy to achieve with softer base colors, you may end up with colors bleeding underneath the final encasing, which usually doesn’t look so great. Many of the transparent Effetre colors work well, since they tend to be a little more firm in the flame than many Effetre opaques. I usually start with a base bead shape that is longer than wide, though round shapes work well too. For this particular bead I chose a base of transparent grey, covered in silver foil. After burnishing and then burning off the foil, I added a number of colors of reduction frit and melted them in.
Step 2:
Heat a rod of clear in the flame. I use Lauscha clear; its viscosity helps with keeping an even trail when making the bead. Holding the bead below the flame and the clear in the flame, trail a long spiral of clear around the bead. Keep the base bead cool and the clear good and hot. Keep the trail as uniform in thickness as possible. This can be a challenge, but it’s a great way to practice! Maintaining a consistent position of your glass in the flame, and a consistent distance of the bead from the glass will really help. Make sure that each coil of clear trail doesn’t touch the previous coil of clear. In other words, you want space between each coil of clear, but not much. This is important in maintaining the “twisty” part of the bead! I find the effect works best if the coils are fairly close together. Otherwise, instead of sharper ridges of color, the finished bead will have more of a spiraled “plateau” look (this can be neat too, but I like the sharp ridges better).
FYI: I use the end of the mandrel to wipe of any bubbly or scummy ends of clear rods.
Step 3:
Repeat Step 2, directly on top of the previous trail of clear. The idea in doing this is to build up the mass of clear, and have thick ridges of clear glass for the most pronounced distortion effect (this also helps to create sharp ridges and prevent “plateaus”). Working from one end of the bead to the other, melt in the clear spiral. Keep the entire bead in the flame (rather than just the coil), since the idea is to get the clear to melt into the bead and allow the base color to “bleed” in between the coils of clear.
Step 4:
After melting in the clear, gently shape your bead to even out ends and get your desired shape. Cool slightly, and encase the bead, taking care not to smear the thin ridges of color you’ve formed in Step 3 (this is where it helps to use “stickier” base colors). I use a stripe encasing, running the clear parallel to the mandrel. I make one stripe of clear and add more stripes on either side to prevent any single area from getting too hot. Melt in the encasing, and gently marver to restore shape. I messed up the encasing on one end of this bead, so my “quick fix” was to add encaps in cobalt blue transparent glass.
Step 5
Using mashers, flatten the bead. This helps to make the “twisty” effect even more pronounced, by emphasizing the distortion effect from clear. Ensure that you’ve evenly flattened the bead. Remove any stress marks in the flame. Give the bead a final flame polish, and pop the twisty bead into the kiln.
Feel free to post any questions- I want to see your results! Have fun being twisted!