Beadmaking - Working with Tesseri

Neil and Karen from DARC held a workshop / experimental session on Saturday July 18. A small group of us spent the afternoon working with the Mark 5 charcoal bead furnace, primarily working out the best firing dynamics and continuing to transfer our skills with modern torch working methods backwards into the Viking Age.

The furnace used above is based on base plates found in the excavations at Ribe, Denmark. The superstructure remains speculative, being refined in detail as our working experience increases with the equipment. With each session, the ratio of successfully completed beads increases - a sure sign that something is improving!

One note - for this last session, a modern electric blower was used to supply the needed air.

(Darrell)