Making Dots

• 1). Start with a molten bead on a mandrel, shaped or not. Hold the mandrel in your left hand (if you're right-handed).
  
  
• 2). Have a glass rod in your right hand.
  
  
• 3). Move the bead to just outside the flame of your torch, with the flame between you and the bead.
  
  
• 4). Heat the tip of the glass rod until it's just glowing.
  
  
• 5). Make a dot on the bead by touching the molten tip of the glass rod to the bead and immediately pulling the rod back to stretch it through the flame. The flame will cut through the stretched portion of the rod.
  
  
• 6). Return the bead to the flame briefly to melt down the point of glass remaining in the dot.
  
  
• 7). Repeat the process to make as many dots as you like.
  
  
• 8). When you've added as many dots to the bead as desired, you may return the bead to the flame to melt down the dots slightly, or flush with the bead's surface.
  
  
• 9). Cool the bead slowly in a fiber blanket or heated vermiculite. Or, if you have a kiln, go directly to the annealing process.