I see the topic of tube come up
and there's a couple of ways I go about making tube beads.
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01-21-2010:
Tube Bead:
As a follow up to this post to
CITY-o-Clay I created a new tutorial on how to make one of the simplest
tube beads I know how to do.
One can make the tube without the hole and then poke a hole through it
while still raw. Poke from one end, remove, turn the tube around, poke
from the other end. In this next tutorial I use a turkey skewer to get
the initial hole poked, then I roll the raw tube bead with the skewer
inside to widen the hole.
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http://www.norajean.com/New_Projects/Chop/MirrorTubeBead/Index.htm
This next picture shows the
finished beads but how they were made was I took slices of the stacked
sheets, pressed them to a sheet of clay. Cut out a rectangle and wrapped
it around a bamboo bbq skewer. They were cured, wet sanded, and finished
on that skewer until I wanted to take them off. To take off the tube
beads off of the skewer I reheated them for 5-10 minutes, then twist and
pull.
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http://www.norajean.com/2010/01-18-NJ-Cane/004.htm
Here is an example of how big a rectangle I needed to wrap around a
bamboo bbq skewer for a tube bead.
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http://www.norajean.com/2009/09-12-TOF-Beads/021.htm
Here is a close up of Tongues of Fire basket weave tube beads, made in
the same fashion: reduce some cane design, slice off a rectangle, wrap
around a bbq skewer, cure, wet sand, finish, and Bob's your uncle and
Fanny's your aunt and you're done.
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http://www.norajean.com/2009/08-25-TOF-BasketWeave/Beads-032.htm
Making beads on a turkey skewer is the easiest way to keep a hole
centered while you for a bead, tube or any other shape. Here's an
example of compressing a natasha cut to make your life easier making a
large bead.
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http://www.norajean.com/Biz-Archive/Chop/Natasha/Compress.htm
So just as there are many ways to peel a shrimp, there are many ways to
make a tube bead. These are some examples.
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