As any lampworker will attest to, getting new tools rivals Christmas morning! I just made the plunge and bought 3 Beadrollers from Donna Felkner at CGBeads. I’ve only worked with them for a couple of days, but I love them already and I think the new shapes are going to be very popular!

I got the Garden Variety Pandora Style, the Quad Squad Pandora Style, and the brand new Ribbed Quints. (which is for smaller holed beads, but still very cool!)

Ribbed:

For the large hole beads, the first two tools add 4 new shapes to my bracelet sized bead repertoire:   barrel, disc, stubby bicone, and round. I love the way the barrel shape looks with sterling caps!

barrel:disc:

stubby bicone: round: 

Round beads (on large hole mandrels) are actually hard to shape by hand. I usually just use gravity to shape my beads, and they are usually donut shaped. For bigger focals I can now make bicones and ovals. The nice thing about these tools is that they help you keep bead sizes consistent-great for earrings. I am really looking forward to playing more with these cool tools!