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What does "fire-polished" mean?

After glass beads have had their facets cut, they have to be polished.  High-quality faceted beads will be buffed until they are shiny.  The Czech manufacturers polish their less-expensive faceted beads by drawing them through an oven until the surfaces of the beads turn molten; when the beads cool, the surfaces of the beads are then shiny.  That's what fire-polishing is.  Only a very thin layer of the surface glass turns molten during the process.  Even so, a very small amount of glass may pool on an underside facet, causing the facet to be imperfect.  The amount of glass that pools is so small that the facet rarely bulges, but it will cause the facet to have a mottled surface.  Thus, at least one facet on each bead will be imperfect.  And that's the problem with fire-polishing.

If the blades that were used to facet the beads were dull, that can result in ridges in the facets.  The fire-polishing process doesn't melt the surface of the beads enough to remove the ridges.  The problem of dull blades is a separate problem from the one described above, but I thought I should mention it.  It appears that the Czech manufacturers are becoming more diligent about using good blades, but I still occasionally get faceted beads with ridges in the facets.

I said in the first paragraph above that the Czech manufacturers use fire-polishing on their "less-expensive" beads.  That doesn't mean that the beads are junk.  The Czech manufacturers do make a line of buffed faceted beads which are meant to compete with Swarovski faceted beads, but they are very expensive.  I carry the fire-polished beads because they strike a good balance between cost and appearance.  They can be used to make quality jewelry, but keep in mind that a customer may occasionally notice an imperfect facet.

Fire-polishing is also used to seal certain types of coatings to the surfaces of both faceted and non-faceted beads.  Any coating which has been heat-sealed will be very durable.  Not all coatings are heat-sealed, however.