NZGBA – New Zealand Glass Bead Artists

Star Implosion – Helen and I came across some images on glassartists.org and wondered how did she do that

Helen found a free tutorial online with instructions… Here it is

First off, let me thank Mary Lockwood for her implosion instructions, and Amy Trescott for the directions to her astounding beads, all right here on lampworketc.  When I tried to follow Amy’s directions, I had a bit of a mess on my hands, but could see the potential. It got me thinking about the implosion directions I had used many months ago, and I came up with a plan. Nothing so beautiful as Amy’s beads, but something I could work with. I was pretty excited, and I know there’s someone out there who can take this and run with it. So I thought I’d go ahead and put it out there. Well here goes- I hope the directions make sense. I have no camera or photographer, so you’ll just have to put up with my crude drawings. (Helen has created these images so photos below are from Helen Moore)

I started thinking about the problem of seeing the mandrel hole last night, and came up with a change to this tutorial. Instead of winding on the small clear bit to the right of the black, simply make the black part longer, then implode over it. This should give you a nice background for the whole bead while covering up that mandrel hole.

   I used three main color groups of glass for these beads, plus black and clear. Of course you can try more, though this seems about right for a first try. In each color group you will need one solid and one clear rod, more if you’re feeling adventurous.

You’ll start your bead by making a series of three winds on your mandrel. In this picture, the section on the left begins as a clear pea-sized bead. Melt this into a truncated cylinder with nicely shaped ends, then add a couple more winds of clear to make a small disk. Next to this you will add a short cylinder of black glass. To the right of the black glass, add a short wrap of clear glass (or more black). The three sections should be touching each other, with the section on the left staying in a disk shape.

Now you’re ready to start adding colors. What you’re trying to do is basically to make a star on top of the black glass. None of the colors will be totally melted in, though they should all be made to blend after application. So, add the solid color that you want at the larger end of your implosion first. You should put at least five dots around the black core, leaving a bit of space between the dots. Melt down a bit and add the transparent of the same color group and melt some. Add dots of clear or a pale transparent of the same color group on top of these dots. At this point you can add some dots of clear between the piles of built up colored dots to keep them separated, though it’s not necessary. Now you will do the same thing with the other two color groups, adding the dots maybe just slightly to the right of your original group, and a layer of clear between, melting together as you go. Just keep in mind that you’re making a star on top of that black cylinder. The clear layer adds to the petal-like effect, and keeps the colors separated.

Once you have all of your colors dotted on, you will have a star-shaped bead on top of your black core bead. Now comes the part I probably can’t draw a picture of (though I did try). You will need to expand your clear disk by adding two or three wraps, and then begin inching the star and the disk closer to each other. I use my small mashers for this. It must be done slowly and carefully so as not to break your bead release. You will mash them closer, add another wrap or two of clear to your disk, then inch them closer again. Continue wrapping your clear disk until it is sticking up above the star by at least two wraps. Melt the disk and star together, mashing together if necessary to speed things along a bit. Once the star and disk are all of a piece, and there are no ridges in the clear disk, you are ready to implode.

Heat evenly all the way around, aiming your flame at the rim of the disk while pointing the mandrel down (for this I have no picture). This is best done rather slowly with an eye to keeping the bead evenly heated, though you may need to spin the bead rather quickly at times to lengthen the disk and keep it from melting down before you’re ready. Now you will basically be following the directions from step four on for a regular implosion bead as explained by Mary Lockwood here on lampworketc. You want to be sure the glass melts together from the disk end down to try and keep from trapping bubbles.    

This will give you a nice cone-shaped bead. You may want to decorate the small end of the bead somewhat to hide the mandrel hole. So far, I haven’t succeeded in re-shaping this type of bead and keeping the implosion effect. There are a lot of possibilities for this type of bead- more complicated star shapes, or another shape with a clear disk melted over it.