Friday, October 30, 2015

Octahedral Cluster

This is a recent example of one of my all time favorite beaded bead designs, the Octahedral Cluster. Octahedral Clusters all have six stars, like the 6 faces of a cube.  In the beaded bead below, I colored two of the stars silver.

I colored two of the stars black and two of them gold.  Each pair lies on opposite faces.
The points of the stars come together three at a time, one star of each color. There are 8 places on the beaded bead that look just like this.  Four of them are identical, and the other four are mirror images of this.
The beaded bead has the symmetry of an octahedron, which is the same as the symmetry of a cube. Knowing this, you might wonder if this beaded bead is really an octahedron, as I told you, or maybe, it is really a cube. If we look at the largest beads (in green), there are 12 of them.
That could be useful because cubes have 12 edges, but so do octahedrons. In fact, the holes are line segments.  So if you look at the holes of the largest beads, and you extend those lines so that the lines intersect, you will form the 12 edges of an octahedron.  For that reason, I think it is an octahedron, and that is why I call it an Octahedral Cluster.

Here you can see how big it is.
Do you want it?  This beaded bead is for sale.
Do you want to make your own?  The tutorial for the Cube and Octahedral Clusters is available. If you make one of each, then you will really see the difference.

2 comments:


  1. Hi, I'm Marta and I'm also craft: I do high-end jewelry (often with semiprecious stones and sterling silver always with stones) with the Japanese technique of Miyuki.

    I found your blog by chance and I've taken a little walk by it, I am still with open mouth I have seen so much beauty out of your hands artist.

    Now, my greatest desire is that you accept the invitation that I give you in hand for you to come to visit my little craft corner and see my things, they are also pretty ... And if you like, you stay follower of him (not see what it is costing me find followers for a blog on the topic of mine).

    I look forward to your visit (hope I keep it in the heart) and say goodbye for now with a kiss and a flower

    ReplyDelete

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