You can order now.
$39.95
(FREE S&H until January 2004)
The two most important features in a glass beadmaking torch are plenty of heat and a "clean, neutral" flame. Why? You have to be able to melt the glass, but if your flame has unburned fuel in it, the pigments in the glass will be ruined or "grayed out".
So the flame has to be PURE as well as HOT.
The HOT HEAD TORCH was designed specifically for beadmaking. Because it is a single canister torch, no oxygen tank is required for the torch to do its job. While High Temperature Brazing Fuel (MAPP GAS) can produce the high temperatures needed to make glass beads, it had never been used for this purpose because the conventional, commercially available Mapp Gas torches did not burn cleanly enough for beadmaking. The HOT HEAD BEADMAKING TORCH changed that.
When Cindy Jenkins, the torch's inventor, started making beads, no simple. single canister fuel torches burned cleanly enough to make beads without harming the beautiful colors of the glass through "reduction".
She wanted to have a torch that:
didn't cost an arm and a leg
didn't require big oxygen tanks
was portable.
After a lot of research and a lots of early prototypes,
the HOT HEAD BEADMAKING TORCH became a reality. It brought beadmaking to anyone desiring to make beads as a hobby, craft or profession. So YOU can make glass beads even if your space or finances are limited.
Many, but not all, professional lamp-workers use an expensive oxygen-propane torch system costing several hundreds of dollars and requiring an oxygen tank. Many of these professionals started on a HOT HEAD BEAD TORCH and began their beadmaking by reading Cindy Jenkins' book, YOU CAN MAKE GLASS BEADS, following her simple, clearly illustrated instructions.
She created the torch anyone could afford and she wrote the book on how to make glass beads. A lot of people have graduated from their introduction to beadmaking into full blow professional beadmaking careers. They use faster, hotter torches now,
but their started on a HOT HEAD, learning their craft at a managable speed.
Why did CINDY JENKINS invent the torch and write the books?
Because she LOVES glass beadmaking, glass beads, and wanted to share her enthusiasm with everyone she could reach. She continues to be surprised by the growing numbers of people who have come to love beadmaking. She initially thought she might sell a few hundred Hot Head Torches. Year by year, more and more people have started to make beads. Go into any craft or beadmaking store and ask to look at the lampwork beads. See for yourself.
Several years after writing YOU CAN MAKE GLASS BEADS, she published a sequel, MAKING GLASS BEADS, brimming with beautiful beads by some the world's best beadmakers. Inspirational, beautiful and full of beginning, intermediate and advances techniques. This book has been called the Bible of Beadmaking by many people for many years - in print, on the web, in beadmaking demonstrations and in just plain word of mouth testimonies. While Cindy is embarrassed about it, it is just the truth. If you don't have the book - get it - use it - make the comparisons yourself. We have.
In 2003, Cindy published her third book, BEADS OF GLASS. WOW. The technology has moved so far in the six years since she published MAKING GLASS BEADS it's shocking. The book is chocked full of fabulous beads, bios of some of the best beadmakers around, and is full of new techniques that have become part of any hobbiest's or professional's "knowledge toolbox".
Order it. You won't be sorry.
