I translate the article from Bahasa Indonesia into English. The original article is HERE
Hay all...Indonesian bead lovers. How are you? Warm greeting from me, from far far away...Accra the capitol city of Ghana. Lets take a look at Krobo shop and the process making of the beads.
We departed from Accra approximately nine o'clock.
It turned out pretty jammed and travel quite far, about two hours plus TK Beads is outside Accra. Aiihhh really hot ... but once we arrived, gone all fatiguea. Here it is the hooray hooray team we're posing among krobo beautiful beads.
When entering this area, we were greeted by mothers who stringing Krobo into necklaces and earrings. There we also can see firsthand the making Krobo by the craftsmen.
From this series of photos, looks the craftsmen formed Krobo one by one manually. And normally takes approximately two weeks to complete the creation of a model of Krobo bead. Each stage of manufacture is very important. From molding to giving motif to the krobo bead, everything is done by hand. Here the tools they're usually use...
Piled stacks of molds made from clay.
Traditional oven.
Wooden sticks as skewers when the bead will be motived.
Simple carpentry tools
Actually there is one very important ingredient, namely cassava branches. Why is it important? Because cassava stem is what produces holes in krobo painted powder glass beads. When the glass powder from the grinding bottles inserted into the mold, then inserted cassava stem. The cassava stem will burn out when on the fire process and leave holes in the glass powder which has been fused to form a glass bead. And for translucent krobo bead, pretty pierced hole using a pointed tool of iron. But ... STOP!!! Let's just follow step by step to make krobo bead...
Glass powder from the grinding bottles inserted in the mold.
And then fire process by using traditional oven made from clay. Translucent beads require cooking 35-45 minutes at a temperature of 850-1000 deg. Celsius. Powder glass beads require cooking 20-30 minutes at 650-800 deg. Celsius. Painted beads are decorated with a paste made of coloured glass powder and water, which is applied using a thin wooden stalk. They are cooked a second time to fix the decor.
The craftsman uses an awl to make the centre hole in the translucent beads as soon as they are removed from the kiln. While one awl maintains the mould in place, the other one is used for turning the bead around in the mould to shape it while the fused glass slowly hardens at air temperature.
Beads are left to cool slowly in the moulds to prevent from cracking. After cooling down at least an hour, beads are removed from the moulds.
The last step consists in washing and polishing the beads by rubbing them forcefully with water and sand on a smooth stone.
After washing, they dried at direct sun.
After the beads have been cooled and washed, the bead maker begins the painstaking process of painting his highly individualized designs on the beads.
After each color is applied, the bead must be re-fired. The beads often have as many as five or six different colors on them.
The re-fired takes about 30 minutes each.
Beads are left to cool slowly in the moulds to prevent from cracking.
The last step consists in washing and drying.
After nearly two hours of back and forth as happy to see the process of making, it is time to go home. It turns garbage bottle that could be mistaken for something that became an icon of Ghana. Until we meet again in the next tour.
Warm regards .....
