Hi Folks,

I continue on with my pattern of "going rogue" in my lapidary work.  I haven't cold worked any glass beads in a long time so I have recently been making some as I get ready for the Portland, Oregon Bead Bazaar next weekend.  Here's a little about how I got into making handcrafted beach glass beads, along with subverting the dominant "shiny" paradigm in glass with my matte finishes, and some of my newest work....

Back in the mid 90's I noticed some local art jewelers who were using beach glass in their work.  I asked one gallery owner in Seattle how a certain jeweler got so much uniform beach glass for her production work.  She let me in on the secret that this jeweler made her own beach glass.  A light went on in my head!  I could easily make my own beach glass!  Since then I’ve collected all kinds of patterned glass from Value Village, Goodwill, garage sales, and even my Grandma’s estate.   I’ve been making all sorts of unusual pieces from this.  No two are ever exactly alike.  I cut up the glass on my diamond saw, shape it, sand it (120 and 220 grit by hand), drill it if it’s going to be a bead, and then tumble just overnight with 600 grit to create a satinny, uniform, matte finish.  I call it "Handcrafted Recycled Sea Glass." I hope you enjoy my creative recycling efforts as much as I do making them!

Here's a selection of pieces made from a green glass hob nail salt cellar, a beer colored patterned glass (what does one call glass with consistent round bubbles on it), baroque amber colored pressed glass ashtrayite and the purple is scrap art glass from a glass blowing studio. 

What I most like in working with and then tumbling the patterned press glass is that the smooth parts and the "high" parts of the pattern get all satin smooth while the recessed, depressed parts of the glass STAY shiny, so it creates great contrast!  I also made this 3 bead suite out of an old ashtray with these wonderful graduated round bumps...There's a little bit of residula pink paint that coverd the glass still in the grooves of the pattern.  It didn't come out in the tumbling but I might have to give it a good scrubbing with a toothbrush and some lava soap to get it out.

The glass in this group is from the lens of a large GREEN TRAFFIC LIGHT that was made here in the USA (printed on the glass) by Kopp Glass.  Hence, I am happy to offer for your beading and ornamentation pleasure GREENLIGHTITE, also known as GOLIGHTITE.  The color is actually a beautiful blue green.  Found at busy intersections across the world, green Golightite is a wonderful symbol of free access and easy advancement on the road of life....

By now, many people have seen the colorful, mass produced, glassy, cat's eye simulant beads and carvings that come out of China, often called FIBEREYE.  All those bright colors and chatoyancy come from glass fiber optic  (jewelry grade, not communications grade) that is colored, fused, and mass produced in China.  When one cuts parallel to the fibers, they form the cats eye effect or chatoyance (from the French "chat oeil", or cat eye).  If one cuts so the glass fibers are lined up from top to bottom, an image is literally transmitted from one end or side of the cab or bead to the other.  There are very few lapidaries that work in this material or do the kind of work I do in it.   I got this lovely colored material some years ago through an Australian company's American warehouse where I've done business for years.  I decided to leave many of my pieces of fibereye matte finished because it gives the chatoyancy a very soft, lustrous quality.  Here's a bunch of my matte finished fiberye that I just made...  The coffee cream colored one, 2nd from right, really shows off the cats eye-chatoyance of this material.  The one on the far left is emerald green on the other side and rose on the top.  One can buy this material two-tone or even three tone, as you can see from the display of cabs,  dangles, and beads below... 

One really has to move these around in the light to get a feel for their muted luminescence.  The cabs on my biz card shows what happens when this is cut with the fibers front to back.  You're not looking "through" the glass fibers as mush as the image below is being "imaged up" to the top of the surface of the cab via the fiber optics!

Last, but not least, not all the glass I cold work is man made!  I resisted cutting much obsidian (natural volcanic glass) for a long time because it is sooooo hard to get a good scratch free polish on it, but I really, really like and prefer a matte finish on some obsidian, especially snowflake obsidian.  Naturally obsidians with neat optical phenomena (rainbow, velvet peacock, red ribbon) look better with a high polish. 

Thanks for letting me share and for those who are interested in my work, I have a dozen 99 cent auctions with no reserve closing on Sunday in my eBay store.  Have a Happy Halloween, Samhain, & All Saints Day everyone. 

David, Nice glass, but I don't know if I can forgive for cabbing Grandma's salt cellar, I collect them. The optic fiber-eye glass at the bottom sure turned out nice. Some almost looks like candy corn. Sandblasting may produce a more pleasing sea glass look rather than tumbling. 

Bentiron:

David, Nice glass, but I don't know if I can forgive for cabbing Grandma's salt cellar, I collect them. The optic fiber-eye glass at the bottom sure turned out nice. Some almost looks like candy corn. Sandblasting may produce a more pleasing sea glass look rather than tumbling. 

 Hi all,  Don't worry Bentiron, most of the pieces I cut up are already chipped or damaged!   I like the finish I get with tumbling because it softens the corners of the glass and for the shiny stuff with depressions I get a mix of shiny depressions and matte tops of the bumps.  I wouldn't get that effect if I used a sandblaster.  I just tumble over night with a 600 grit and lots of scrap in the tumbler to cushion the pieces to prevent and reduce chipping.

 I just did another batch of the recycled art glass beads.   Here's a group shot of the pieces that I just got finished and listed. 

I like the frosty clarity and all the different widths and colors that arch through the beads.  I've also cut some more "baby snowflake" obsidian and I'm particularly fond of this bead that I just put in my eBay store as well...  Someone recently asked if the snowflakes were caused by "ash" in the obsidian.   The official explanation for the cause of the "snowflakes" and other features of obsidian is as follows...(info pulled from the internet) 

"Obsidian is mineral-like, but not a true mineral because as a glass it is not crystalline; in addition, its composition is too complex to comprise a single mineral. It is sometimes classified as a mineraloid. Though obsidian is dark in color similar to mafic rocks such as basalt, obsidian's composition is extremely felsic. Obsidian consists mainly of SiO2 (silicon dioxide), usually 70% or more.....Pure obsidian is usually dark in appearance, though the color varies depending on the presence of impurities. Iron and magnesium typically give the obsidian a dark green to brown to black color. A very few samples are nearly colorless. In some stones, the inclusion of small, white, radially clustered crystals of cristobalite in the black glass produce a blotchy or snowflake pattern (snowflake obsidian). It may contain patterns of gas bubbles remaining from the lava flow, aligned along layers created as the molten rock was flowing before being cooled. These bubbles can produce interesting effects such as a golden sheen (sheen obsidian) or a rainbow sheen (rainbow obsidian)."

I recently got THREE disks of trafficlightite off of eBay, so sometime in the next week or two I'll be working on sets of red, yellow, and green beads!  Stay tuned and I'll keep ya posted.

It is COLD here in Portland!  25 degrees and it feels like 12.  Even though my studio is pretty well insulated and heated, it's hard to get it over 60 degrees in here andmy hands get pretty cold working in water all the time.   At least we're having sunny days.  Well thanks for letting me share!  Back to the grind...

I like the art glass beads, nice banding. It has been cold and raining in Phoenix the last couple of days and I'm cold and just haven't been able to work at the bench. The cold makes me tighten up and then I hurt. Not much fun being cold.

Cool pieces and great info, thanks a lot!

 Those are very cool.  I especially like the ones in the top picture.  I've been wanting to experiment with something like that for a while now.  It must take ages, even tho you tumble the stones, right?

 very cool work....