The process of attaining the perfect bead
The perfect glass bead every time is the goal of the Potters' glass bead manufacturing process. The perfect glass bead - an exact sphere, pure and clear - offers strength in its perfect roundness, and optimum reflective qualities in its purity and clarity.
The manufacture of glass beads is different from most other glass, mainly because there is no molten batch. Potters uses soda lime cullet, which is ground and sorted into basic sizes before introducing it to the furnace. The beads are actually formed in a hot furnace atmosphere.
Pre-sized ground cullet is gravity-fed into the proprietary Potters'-designed, gas-fired furnace. The intense heat melts the ground glass while it is suspended in the burning gas, forming a sphere. The sphere is carried upward from the heat zone by the products of combustion that form a natural draught. Immediately upon exiting the heat zone, the spheres enter a large cooling zone where they are collected and transferred for further sizing, grading, coating and packaging.
Quality control is critical to make consistent glass bead batches. It is the attention to the development of the manufacturing process combined with quality control that has kept Potters in the forefront of the glass bead market, with the ability to deliver quality, consistently sized beads.