Uwe is indeed great at reworking old trade beads. He uses a coldworking process. I gave it a few tries as well. Getting it to a nice finish is the hardest in my opinion.

There are many ways in which beads were changed in shape and color, and how broken beads were fixed, either by applying heat or by coldworking.

This set of beads from Hans shows some great examples of reworked beads.