The Coming of Beads

As jewelry artists and beaders our main material are beads. Bead making has been a highly valued skill throughout the world from earliest recorded times. In Ancient Egypt bead making was divided into specialist guilds according to the materials and technique used, and a similar system is used in modern India. Techniques invented by the Egyptians and Romans are still in use today and many skills have been shrouded in secrecy for centuries; the death penalty was even incurred for divulging trade secrets in Renaissance Venice. In Jablonec, the bead center of Czechoslovakia, the export of beads is severely rationed, despite high demand; in a typical factory there are only 80 skilled workers capable of producing 240 pieces each day.

Hand-worked beads
Early beads were made from substances used for other purposes such as bones from hunted animals and offcuts of stone tools. The rough carving and flaking techniques derived from making other implements. Many beads today are handmade, from sea shells cut and polished from the Pacific beaches, to porcelain beads designed in European markets.

Piecing Beads
Once shaped, a bead is pierced to make the hole. A cone-shaped hold, drilled in from both sides, is a sign of great age often seen in Pre-Columbian beads. Hand-wound glass beads are constructed around a metal wire which when removed leaves a hole.

Mass Production
The most seen today and cheapest in manufacturing of beads is the mass production. Cheap materials such as glass allowed everyone through-out the ages to have wares of beads. The Renaissance saw a great increase in mass production for export and today thousands of wooden beads are turned on lathes. The invention of molding produced perfectly shaped identical beads, easily recognized by a telltale seam between the poles and around the girth of a bead. In 1895 Daniel Swarovski invented an automatic process for cutting quantities of quality glass beads. Even today, the method is so guarded that workers do not have access to different parts of the factory.

Finishing
Once shaped, most beads are tumbled in a revolving cask to remove the molded seam and smooth or add polish. Substances added to the cask produce different effects; garnet paper or find sandpaper polishes wood, leather gives a soft shine to plastic. The concentric layers of colored glass in multi-tone beads rub away in different quantities during tumbling to give a two-three tone effect. Finishes, from lustering to coating of iridescence, enhance plain beads and are often added during tumbling.

Color
Color is either part of the bead’s material (natural or artificial) or is added after the bead has been made. Oxides are mixed into glass and into the glazes applied to ceramic beads. Precious stones are dyed or heat treated to enhance the color.

Whatever your taste in beads from glass, crystal, resin, polymer clay, natural gemstone, or wood; they have all been developed by nature with a touch of human hand.

*Experts from various bead books, magazines and web articles.