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We're going to make a basic, tube shaped bead. I chose a mandrel that was a little bit larger
because I'd like to wear this bead on a chain or a leather cord eventually. This particular
style bead looks really good on men, so wearing it on a leather cord is a great option. So
what we're going to do again is heat your mandrel, heat your glass, and in order to
make a tube bead, you're going to start just the same way we've started with several of
our other beads with your basic disc bead. You're going to go ahead and round that out
a little bit. Make sure it's even on both sides. Make sure that it's symmetrical as
possible. And once you have your first bead applied and shaped to the way you like it,
this is going to be kind of your template for moving down the mandrel. Essentially what
you're going to do is make a series of disc shaped beads next to each other. And then
what you can do is use your marver, your graphite marver, to shape them out a little bit. So
we've got our base bead. I'm going to use my marver just a little bit. You can use a
hand held one or the one on top of your torch. Now that we've got our template bead, we're
going to go ahead and add more glass. You want to make sure that you get your next round
bead as close to that bead as possible. You don't want to get any air in between the beads.
Again, you want to add some glass where you see some things might be uneven. And use your
marver to go ahead and shape it. We're going to make this bead just a little bit longer.
We're going to add some more beads to it and do just a little bit more shaping. But this
is your basic start to a tube shaped bead.