Use an opaque red on a 3/32 mandrel. Heat mandrel release to dull orange to prevent outgassing. Take the time to set up your bead properly, that is, do the boring shaping steps with good technique early on in the beadmaking process. It will save you grief later.
Apply glass in a continuous spiral. Make certain thickness is even, gently marvering if not. Gently, that is, unless you want a plant stick...but then you don't need to bother with the release...Bottom of bead (the heart tip, on right) should be even and not too thin!
Add a ring of glass at tip of mandrel (which is top of your heart) to start the cone shaping process.
Heat, marver, heat, marver (add more glass as necessary), heat, marver, till you have a nice cone. Keep glass on center, bottom of bead relatively cool & top of bead even & flat.
Use mashers to flatten bead, gently “pulling” away from bottom/towards tip of mandrel). Bead should be at least 3x thickness of mandrel to prevent cracking.
Mark center (division between humps) with knife.
warm, flip bead upside down to let gravity do its thing, make indents with tool. If necessary add dots of glass to enlarge humps. Lather, rinse, repeat until shape is nice.
Place in kiln & anneal.
Sorry about the dreadful photography, I really need to get off my ass, buy a didymium filter for my camera (as well as a remote trigger...) —shooting with the cell phone while working glass is not recommended:)
N.b. images from this directory: /OnePlus/2022T/20220123T
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
