Having practised—and, in my opinion, ramped up—I now felt confident to attempt the real thing. Bonus, I appeared to still even have the original blue-grey cane and dark blue cane I'd used to make the original. My order was for three beads, and so that's what I made.

Though they only took an hour to do, I was exhausted by the end.^[1]

But at first glance, really, these beads look pretty good! Alas...

There are many advantages to hollow beads: they're much lighter weight, which for beads actually be worn (as opposed to merely displayed) is more important than you might think; they use less glass; I suspect they (can) require less time to make; and they surely come off the mandrel faster.

But there are downsides as well: they're harder to smoothly shape, they crack more readily, and, of course, if one part of the bead gets overheated, the glass thins and puffs or pops, as you see in the photo above.

But I still had two good beads, right? Of course, one was shaped nothing like the original, but I knew Page intended to keep one, and I thought she especially liked this ‘puff on a stalk’, which reminds me of some art noveau vessels.

As it turns out, not so much. This shape, btw, is what happens when the glass internally touches the mandrel as the bead is being puffed: even if there are no leaks, the ‘touch’ causes the glass to draw in towards the mandrel, constricting the lower part of the vessel. This effect can prevented if one is careful about not letting the coils get too cold, which causes them to develop cold seals and open up leaks, which as they re-seal, tends to cause that part of the bead to collapse.

So this meant instead of being done with the job, I really only had one good beads. Back to the drawing board...

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.

Sylvus Tarn