History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c16.s6.28

v1.c16.s6.28

Bead Making: The glass in molten condition was stirred with an iron bar and the mass of molten glass is gathered at its end. Another craftsman pulls out this gathered mass by fixing another iron bar to it. He pulls it quickly by running, resulting in the formation of long glass rods with average thickness of 15 mm. Glass tubes were also made similarly but the gathering was provided with an air cavity and tubes were drawn out from the gathering with a blow iron. To start with beads would have been made singly by hand by winding thin glass threads round a copper wire and breaking off the thread after each bead (Fig 7). Beads from glass tubes were made by drawing out the glass tube to the required diameter and then cutting it into beads.