Annealing

What is Annealing?

In glass bead making this refers to the process by which glass is warmed up and cooled down to reduce / eliminate the stresses within it that may cause it to shatter in the future. (in silversmithing annealing softens the silver to make it workable!)

Why you need to anneal your beads

If you are planning to make glass beads to sell then they must be annealed. This means that the bead is more durable and less like to shatter ruining the jewellery item that has been made

How to tell if your beads are annealed

There are a variety of tests that you can use to test if your beads are annealed some more "scientific" than others.

Bounce test

This means you can bounce your glass bead on a concrete or tiled floor and it will remain intact. This is not truly recommended although dropping does occur regularly by accident!!! This may lead to slight chipping of an otherwise totally acceptable bead!

Cold to hot test

This involves making your bead very cold i.e. putting it in the fridge and then transferring it rapidly to hot water. This is NOT recommended as the glss bead may be perfectly annealed but the thermal shock may cause it to shatter!

Polarising lenses

This is probabaly the most reliable method of checking your annealing schedule. This involves holding the glass bead between t polarising lenses up to a light source and looking for stresses in the glass. These show up as "cross" shapes in the glass. Please note: it can only be done on transparent beads.