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Hello !
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Saving ugly beads
You might have guessed that we've been making an awful lot of beads around here, what with all the new kiln formed bead making kits and stuff. What you don't see is that a lot of testing and refining goes into each mold, and I test glass in the mold at each step, so there are a LOT of ugly beads stacking up! I have a hard time throwing things away, so I thought I'd try to save them
Before:
Some have kiln wash stuck on them, others have sharp edges or are uneven. I just took them all and bundled them into my rock polisher with some 110/220 grit.
This is a pretty big tumbler, you can also use the small ones from hobby shops (try your local rock pick supplier if you have one). This tumbler vibrates, but you can easily use the rolling kind, it will just take a bit longer.
The rock polisher essentially grinds of the outside surface of the beads by rubbing them against each other with grit in between. Think of it like hands off cold working.
Things that can be fixed by polishing in a rock tumbler:
sharp edges - will be rounded
stuck on kiln wash - will be polished off
devit - polished off
wrinkled surface - polished smooth
Some of these problems take longer than others to polish off, so check every few hours and keep going if your results aren't quite there yet.
After tumbling for a few hours, this is what my beads look like:
Now, some of these beads are still kind of ugly, so I'm going to put those ones into my fountain out in the yard. Some look great frosted for a Sea Glass look. Others I will clean well and fire polish so they are shiny again. All in all, about an 80% save rate, not bad for something I spent a little extra time on.
Hope this will help you reconsider some of the pieces you weren't completely happy with.
Have a great weekend!
Thanks for reading, and, as always, let me know if you have questions, I'm happy to help!
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