By Leigh Keenan
Photos by James Keenan

Materials:
10mm Clear Borosilicate Rod
Northstar Carmel or Butterscotch
Northstar Ruby K
Northstar Lt Blue Amber Purple
Fine Clear Frit
Northstar Amber Purple Frit
1 8-10mm Boro Glass Punty

Tools:
Parallel Mashers
Marble Mold
Tungsten Pick
Graphite Reamer
Parallel Tweezers

I have been melting glass for about 10 years, part-time. I started out using soft glass and was not happy with the look of my work, probably because it looked like someone elses. I found it difficult to find a style of my own with soft glass. So I took a class using boro. I love the craziness and unpredictability of borosilicate color. The color combinations are almost limitless, when colors are paired with other colors they take on different characteristics, other than the original color. The uniqueness and one of a kind ability is what draws me to this glass. Boro is also more relaxing to work with than soft glass, not having to keep it in the flame at all times is much less stressful when creating a piece. I can stop and look at the piece and decide what to do next without it cracking or falling on the table.

The look of my new work came from my frustration with mandrals and bead release. I had a lot to trouble with the mandral breaking off in the middle of making a bead. I could only use a mandral about 4-5 times if I was lucky. You can tell when they are starting to go, there is a swelling at the mandrals weak spot, this is usually where the mandral will brake while working in the flame. Bead release was also difficult for me. The release would flake of the mandrel and stick to the side of my bead or it would not work and the bead would stick to the mandral or it was just hell to clean it out of the bead. I know they have come out with better releases for boro beads, but it is still nice not to have to clean out your beads. I get a feeling of freedom when I open the kiln and I don't have anymore work to do, they are clean and ready to go. So instead of a mandral to make the whole, I use a tungsten pick. Learning to use a tungsten pick to make holes in the glass is so liberating. The placement of the hole is up to you. It can be through the middle or on the side or you can make 5 holes if you like. The only limit is your imagination. The most important tools, besides the tungsten pick is a pair of parallel tweezers, to help guide you in finding where to pierce the bead with your tungsten pick, and a graphite reamer to flare out the hole to what ever size you like.

Please click  on thumbnails for larger views..

	Step 1: Take the 10mm glass rod and make a 20mm gather. Let stiffen.
	Step 2: Cover the gather with Northstar Carmel or Butterscotch.
	Step 3: When covering the gather, go back and forth making 16 even stripes around the gather.
	Step 4: What it should look like when covered.
	Step 5: Melt the Northstar Carmel or Butterscotch in.
	Step 6: Make 8 stripes over the Carmel with Ruby K. Dividing the stripes evenly around the gather.
	Step 7: How the gather should look at this point.
	Step 8: Fill the gaps with Northstar Lt. Amber Purple. Melt in.
	Step 9: Pick up some frit. First Amber Purple, melt in, then fine clear, melt in.
	Step 10: Use your tungsten pick and swirl the melted pieces of frit and make a random design.
	Step 11: Shape your gather with marble mold to make round.
	Step 12: Heat the gather evenly. Once heated, squash it with you parallel mashers. Repeatedly if you have to, to make it uniformly flat.
	Step 13: It should look like a lollipop.
	Step 14: Remove chill marks.
	Step 15: Heat one third the way down from the top of the disk and in center. Heat this area on both sides of the disk.
	Step 16: While your disk is hot, find the center, that is one third the way down from the top and pinch with your parallel tweezers. This defines where you are going to pierce the disk with the tungsten pick and your hole with be placed, so the placement of this action is important. You can put the tweezers in the direct center if you wish, but when you pull the disk out you will have too much glass at the top of the finished pendant. You may like that look. Try it. Try everything. I do.
	Step 17: Just another look at how the tweezers should be placed.
	Step 18: Heat the disk on both sides where your marks are from the tweezers. Heat until it is glowing. Take out of the flame and let the outside layer of the glass cool, maybe 30 seconds. Place the tungsten pick where the dimple is from your tweezers. Heat the tungsten pick slightly, you don't want to fume the tungsten the fumes are toxic. After you have heated the tungsten and the inside of the disk is still glowing, go in with the tungsten pick and pierce the glass. Turn the disk over and do the same to the other side. To keep the hole shape nice, you need to treat both side equally. You should now have a pierced disk.
	Step 19: You have pierced the disk.
	Step 20: Now you are going to flare the hole with your graphite reamer. Heat the disk and the reamer and go from one side to the other reaming out the hole. You should do this slowly and many times back and forth from one side to the other.
	Step 21: Once you are happy with the size of your hole, punty up the top of the disk, as shown in the picture.
	Step 22: Holding the disk perpendicular to your torch, spin the disk slowly to evenly heat the area around the hole and a little to the right. It is very important where you place this heat. If it is too much to the right you will not be able to pull out enough glass to get rid of the messy end where the 10mm rod is. If it is too much to the left, you will pull to much glass and lose control of it and ruin your design. So go slow and heat evenly!!!
	Step 23: Once you have heated evenly, you can start to pull, but slowly and still spinning and keeping even heat. If you do not heat evenly, your sides will be misshaped and uneven.
	Step 24: When you are happy with the pull, stop, look at it, go back in and burn off end.
	Step 25: You are almost done! This is what you should have at this point.
	Step 26: Holding the other side of the pendant with some heated tweezers, bang off punty.
	Step 27: Clean up any punty marks.
	Step 28: Place in a warm kiln 1025-1050 temp. for 30 minutes. Cool as you would your other beads.
	The Finished Piece...