To a lot of new buyers and or admirers of lampwork beads, if you tell them that your beads are annealed you will most likely get that “huh?” expression in return.

If you are a buyer of lampwork you need to educate yourself. Otherwise you run the risk of buying beads that may only last a day. It’s your money and you should know what you’re buying.

When glass is heated, pushed around, and shaped while making a bead the molecules in the glass are taken out of order and jumbled all around putting stress on the glass and weakening it. When glass is heated it also expands and when it cools it contracts. So, say you make a bead and you take it out of the flame and lay it on the table in front of you. It immediately starts cooling off and therefore contracting. If you were to simply place the bead down when done and let it cool off on its own. It’s very likely to shatter or get hairline cracks due to the pieces temperature not being the same throughout the whole piece. Any stress or cracks in the final glass piece will severely limit the longevity of the bead. This is where annealing comes into play.

If you want to enjoy your beads for many years or if you are a lampworker and want happy customers, annealing is a very integral step in the bead making process. Most all new bead makers will start out cooling their flame worked beads in fiber blankets or vermiculite. Both serve the same purpose of cooling down the beads slowly helping the beads not to crack. That however is not enough, they are still stressed and could crack or shatter in a matter of hours days or our years. You just never know when it will happen. When someone states their beads have been annealed in a blanket, or flame annealed, run for the hills!

Annealing cannot be done in a fiber blanket, microwave, an oven, or in the torch flame. Glass needs to be put through a very slow and even cooling process that can take up to 6 hours or more depending on the size of bead. A kiln is the only way beads can be annealed. A kiln is used to heat the glass to the correct temperature where the molecules in the glass are able to move around evenly again and properly realign themselves. Once that has occurred the kiln is then slowly ramped down keeping the heat even throughout the bead to prevent stress and keep the bead from forming hairline cracks. After the long process has finished the beads will be back to the original strength and ready for use. That my folks is what is called annealing. If it’s not annealed it shouldn’t be for sale!

Article Contributors:
Joe Holford www.AvenueBeads.etsy.com
Marcy www.StudioMarcy.etsy.com
Kari Madera www.GlassFairy.etsy.com

Why do we call it lampwork you ask? The art of melting glass has been around for a very long time. Although a specific date can’t be placed on the origin of glass beads, most say it came around the Roman Empire time (9th century BC). The art got its name “lampwork” because back in the old day artisans used oil lamps to heat and melt the glass that would then be wound around a metal mandrel coated in a bead release agent. I’ve read that beads use to be valued above gold, imagine that!

Up until about 30 years ago the art of lampworking, its process, and the tools used were kept secret by Italian artisans from the rest of the world. American artists started to dabble around and come up with ways to make glass beads. There were no classes, books, videos, specific tools, or even teachers. So it was a lot of trial and error. Many of the American artists had to trade and share ideas with other American artists and invent their own tools, with most of them still in use today. Today with all the easy access to books, DVDs, proper tools, teachers and classes, the lampworking world has exploded with popularity and continues to grow.

We do not use oil lamps anymore but the name has still hung on for the long haul. In today’s modern time mixed gas torches that run off either propane or natural gas and oxygen are what is most widely used. Which has made more and more people start to call the art “flameworked” but I would much rather call it lampwork and keep the roots and history intact to the age old art.