Boro Bead Questions

[stuwaudby]

Any chance of a separate boro section here?

Made my first boro bead last night, problem was the extra heat needed destroyed the bead release causing a mess. Any advice?

[garishglobes]

What bead release are you using? I use Fusion and don't have a problem...
I wonder if you aren't getting the glass hot and therefore liquid enough, so are pulling more than you would with soft glass, which might put extra stress on the bead release.
I would advise 2mm+ mandrels, any thinner and the heat may well melt through the mandrel!! Whatever I do with boro, the first thing I do is pull stringer and use that. Clear is cheaper and colour is often quite concentrated, so it makes sense not to use much colour and major on the clear. Clear also melts quicker, which helps.
I'd always either put colour in the centre of an encased bead or encase a clear core with a stringer of colour and then decorate rather than do an all-colour bead. That's probably just me, but I do find it works better.

And don't forget there is a lot of fun to be had off-mandrel too

[Steampunkglass]

The only thing I can add to Emma's excellent advise is I find that if I use mandrels that I've dipped a few days before they tend to do exactly the same (I'm using Fusion too). I tend to use only mandrels I've dipped that day or day before. I don't flame drt them either, as that doesn't seem to work for me either

[garishglobes]

That is absolutely true! 
Boro doesn't like old bead release. Actually the other thing is that the wider the mandrel the less easy it seems to be to get the release to crack. I tend to lose more to cracks with the 3.6-4mm mandrels than the 2mm ones, which rarely have problems.

[stuwaudby]

Thanks all,

I was using a thin mandrel which was dipped 5 days ago.

[garishglobes]

I melted 1.6mm mandrels frequently - have melted very few since I switched to 2mm (but then, I haven't used many recently either...) - I've never managed to melt a 4mm one!!!!

[garishglobes]

...or just working off-mandrel