Question: Why is making fused beads dangerous? Is making them fun?

Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 12 Mar 2014:

It is the high temperatures of 1050 degrees C that makes making fused beads dangerous. A home oven only gets up to 220! We often do high temperature work but don’t need two people, but we do for fused beads because they are liquids. If you burn yourself on a solid you just drop it and maybe burn the floor, but if you poured liquid glass on your hand it would set and burn you horribly. It could seal clothes together. It’s nasty. It’s awkward to open the furnace and put the samples in with tongs or take them out so you need two people to do it safely.

I love making fused beads because they only take 20 mins and then you have a beautiful lasting piece of chemistry. I like to guess what colours tgey will be and the excitement of turning them out and seeing whether they come out okay!