Bead Filled Ampules

I’ve read about the liquid filled ampules some kaleidoscope artists make. You can see examples here.

I got some glass tubes – 5mm flint glass scraps from www.sciplus.com (along with lots of other good stuff). I think I’ve concluded that I can’t do a liquid filled ampule with my current equipment and knowledge but I did come up with something I liked.

I’m using a tiny little $9 butane torch from the hardware store. It works great on melting 1mm stringer and can bend 2mm but it takes longer. I heated the end of one tube and then twisted it shut. The twists look a bit messy but I think they’d probably still look good in an image. Then I filled a short section of the tube with tiny holeless beads. I then heated and twisted (or compressed and pulled) a bit above the beads to close off the tube and pull the section free.

It worked pretty well but I think it took longer than a liquid could handle and I don’t think I always got a perfect end seal. The neat thing is now I
can suspend tiny objects within the cell so they don’t all clump at the bottom of the object chamber. It does take some time and patience though – at least without an actual glass torch.

So guess what I did? I ordered a beginners glass torch! We’ll see how much I end up using it