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Making and Firing Ceramic Beads |
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Generally, when we think of making ceramic beads, we think of the asymmetric balls of clay with holes made by shoving a toothpick through them that each of us made in grade school. From the perspective of the jewelry designer who will eventually string a hand-made bead, the hole may not be the most important design feature of the bead but is certainly amongst the most significant. How you craft your beads and how you fire them will significantly effect the quality of your finished bead. Piercing When piercing your beads, insert a needle tool, bamboo skewer, or toothpick where you want the hole. Twist and push the tool in a drilling motion until the point just breaks through the other side of the bead. (See photo, right) Remove the skewer and insert it from the other side, repeating the drilling motion. This will keep the bead from being distorted as you put the hole into it. It will also give you a much cleaner hole. To prevent sharp edges that can wear through the stringing cord, bevel the edge of the hole slightly by pressing the point of a pencil or other tapered tool gently to the edge of the hole. Twirling a damp paintbrush in both ends of the bead hole just before bisque firing gives you a great final result. Glazing As tempting as it may be to dip your beads in glaze, in the end, dipping makes more work. The best way to glaze beads is to support them on a bamboo skewer and twirl them against a brush dipped in glaze. With practice, this method can prove to be much faster than dipping when you factor in the time spent cleaning glaze out of your bead holes. If you do get glaze into the hole of one or more of your beads, running a damp (not dripping) string through the bead hole will usually clean the glaze out of the hole. Dip a length of string, yarn or twine, preferably something a little fuzzy, into water and then roll it up in a bit of paper toweling to get the excess moisture out so that water will not drip from the string and ruin the glazed surface of the bead. Twirling a damp paintbrush in both ends of the bead hole will thin the glaze coat around the holes and reduce the likelihood that your glaze will run into the bead holes during firing. Staining An alternative to glazing your beads is to accent them with a wash of oxide or stain. Traditionally, this is accomplished by dipping or brushing the stain onto the bead and then wiping the beads individually with a damp cloth. The extra time invested in individually wiping each bead is offset by the fact that you can fire stained beads in bowls or piles without the need to stilt them or support them on wires. After years of wishing that there was an easier way to remove the excess stain from these beads, I have taken a cue from the jewelry community and adapted the tumble polishing technique to stain removal. By constructing a sponge lining for a lidded can or cup, I can now remove excess stain with a few shakes. Begin by selecting a can, bowl or cup with a plastic lid. Make your sponge liner by stitching together inexpensive synthetic sponges. Once the liner is complete (see photo, right) it can be dipped into a bucket of water, squeezed out, and placed in your tumbling vessel. Toss a handful of stained beads into the sponge liner and secure the lid. Give it a few shakes and take a look. The longer you shake your bead tumbler or the wetter your sponge lining, the more stain you will remove. If you discover that you've removed too much stain, apply more and re-tumble. Drying Whether you glaze or stain, your beads must be completely dry before you fire them. A drying rack which can be easily transported from workspace to storage shelves can be made by half filling a 1 quart paint can with sand and pushing an aluminum mesh gutter guard into the opening. The sand will provide extra weight in the bottom of your can and the gutter guard will work like a flower arranging frog to keep your beads from bumping into each other while they're wet. These "Bead Frogs" are so easy to put together that you could set up one for each firing range that you work in and simply allow the glazed beads to accumulate until you have enough for a firing. Firing Once glazed or stained, the beads are ready for firing. Glazed beads must be supported by wires during firing. There are commercially available bead trees designed to support beads and other small glazed pieces during firing. What type of bead tree you use is really more a function of how much money you want to spend on kiln furniture and the limits of your firing space than anything else. Browse through the catalogues of ceramics suppliers and see which styles appeal to you. It is possible, should you wish to do so, to make your own bead trees, supports, etc. There are various refractory clay bodies available from ceramics suppliers or you can modify an existing body by adding grog and/or crushed firebrick. Whatever supports or bead trees you choose, bead wires are an important part of firing beads. My best recommendation is to find a supplier of High Temperature wire. Kemper sells small coils of the stuff and they're not horribly expensive. If you're not sure of the wires you're using, test them under your firing conditions by firing a batch of stained (but not glazed) beads on them. If the wires fail with stained beads, you won't have to chip the beads out of the kiln or off of your kiln furniture. If the wires fail while supporting glazed beads, you've got a mess... I have found that the easiest way to load the kiln is to glue the beads to my high temp wire before I take them out to the kiln. With the beads glued in place with the correct amount of space between them, it takes one of the most tedious parts of loading the kiln out of the equation. Now all that's left is to position the wires on their supports so that none of the beads touch. An alternative to firing your beads threaded on wires supported between posts or bead trees is to fire them on loops of high temperature "stamen" wire which are then threaded on porcelain rods. (picture coming soon) Important note: All wires will sag to some degree during firing. This problem becomes more pronounced the higher you fire. Surprisingly, the loops of stamen wire have not, in my experience drooped enough to cause problems. To minimize the sagging of your wires, the ends must be weighted with spare posts, broken bits of kiln shelf or other weight. (see photos of kiln interior to the right) Were I designing bead trees, they would be designed much like plate or tile stilts that interlock so that each layer would lock in the layer below...
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Piercing the Bead |
This image shows a bead just as the bamboo skewer used to pierce the hole breaks through the surface of the clay. |
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A sponge liner for a bead tumbler |
By stitching synthetic sponge together to form a sponge cup, you can create a bead tumbler for use cleaning excess oxides off the surface of textured beads. | |||||
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To learn more about ceramic beadmaking, or to find other ceramic beadmakers, consider visiting the Beads of Clay website.
A yahoo group by the same name for discussion and networking is also available for those interested in a more interactive forum.
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Andi's "Bead Frog" for drying glazed beads |
Stained beads drying on my "Bead Frog"... The dish next to it holds dried, stained beads. Since these will not be glazed, they can be fired in bead bowls like the one shown. | ||||
Beads fired on support wires |
Glazed beads must be supported during firing. High temperature wire strung between supports in the kiln will do just the trick. | |||||
A full kiln load of glazed stoneware beads |
To prevent the wires from sagging or drooping during firing, you should place weights on the ends. This is a view of the inside of my kiln after a cone 6 firing. | |||||
