Small Scale Hot Glass

I first developed an interest in glassworking during a 9th grade chemistry class when we made glass bends during a lab. It was an exciting and memorable experience to bend and form a material that would usually break instead of bending. I was curious about learning more, but I only knew of glassblowing, an expensive skill to learn that was not accessible to me at the time. When I came across some information on glass beadmaking (also known as lampworking, flameworking), I realized that I could give it a try with some of the tools already in my workshop -- though like many hobbies once I wanted to learn more there was a lot of interesting equipment out there to build or purchase. I'm largely self taught and while I have learned much, there are many things still to learn!