help with round round dots

[mel]

Hi there,
I have been asked to make a specific polish folk pattern which involves dots on dots on dots, and I'm not really a dotty person. The base is opaque cobalt blue, and the first dot is in ivory, with other colours on top to make rings. My problem is that the initial dots have to be quite big (four around the equator), using a rod rather than a stringer and some of the dots end up oval instead of round. Any tips please?

Thanks
mel

[amareargentum]

Advice that I found really helpful is to make sure that you apply the dots with the rod at right angles to the bead then heat the dots from all sides when you are melting them in. It seems really obvious but I hadn't thought of it and was just rotating the bead in the flame as normal. Turning the mandrel so the heat comes from the hole (if that makes sense) really made a difference.

I am sure those with far more experience than me will be able to offer more help.

Good luck the beads sound really interesting 

[helbels]

In "Passing the Flame", Corina Tettinger recommends making your large dot as planned, but then using the base bead colour (in your case cobalt) to make  4 tiny dots in a square around the large dot, kind of like this:

@     @
    O
@     @

(where @ are the cobalt dots, and O is your large ivory dot)

Doing this "anchors" the large dot in place, as the cobalt dots prevent the large dot from spreading, and then the small dots then melt invisibly into the base and no-one is any the wiser.

[Lush!]

Chucking in my twopenn'orth - help your dots to melt down evenly by tamping them down gently with a marver, heat the dot, then pat with the marver, heat then pat, heat then pat.

[mel]

Thanks gals, I'm just about to give all your suggestions a go.