Friday 4 February 2011

I Have The Key

I've just spent a happy couple of hours making lots of new beads.  Having had a collection of old keys kicking about in my beading cupboard, I got to thinking.  Could I use them as mandrels and melt glass onto them?  Well before I knew it I was dipping them in bead release and trying to find out. 

After rather messily covering the shaft of the key with ceramic release (and much of myself too) I encountered my next problem.  How on earth would I hold the key and be able to turn it in the flame without burning my fingers?  I got lucky with the first one and I managed to super heat the end of a glass rod and use this as a punty, attaching it to the hot key.  Easy, I thought.  No, just lucky, as try as I might, the subsequent keys were not playing and I had to think of something else. 

A few of the hollow keys offered another solution, which was to stuff bamboo kebab skewers into them and use this to twist the key as necessary.  Hey presto it worked, but not for long and I soon found myself dodging hot metal and glass as one worked itself loose and fell onto my workbench before bouncing toward my lap!  It was after this narrow escape from a third degree burn that I thought I would leave my torch for the day and give the matter some more thought - so what is the key?  Answers on a postcard please!
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