Composited canes, as I have characterized them, have two different approaches. In one—the bundled rod method, tiny sticks of glass (very thin rods or canes) are composed to form an image, are tied around their circumference, carefully heated, then fused at a high temperature, and finally drawn (pulled) to miniaturize the design. In the second method, there are also individual preformed parts, but they are fused together and added-to. When extremely complicated canes are being made, the latter is almost required, in order to get the detail desired. Plus, lots of details are derived from hot-working the elements—adding a strip of glass and tooling it into the desired conformations. This work is not strictly "rods composed together," and is performed with semi-molten glass in a heated state.

Franchini made individual features for his faces—such as eye canes, nose canes, mouth canes, etc., and eventually fused them together to compose the whole face—including also details like hair and clothing, and the all-important "background."

I duplicated all this, when I worked with Fimo in the 1980s and '90s, to create similar types of constructions—which I was able to do because I already understood these techniques.

A third method, that I also consider to be closely related to compositing, is the "hot-strip" technique, used at India. They don't use much (if any) in the way of preformed rods, but rather rely upon making, shaping, adding and reconforming trails—taken directly from a crucible. (Consequently, we have a very good parallel to the differences between "furnace-wound" beads and "lampwork" beads—the latter being derived from preformed elements. ) In India, they have two tools (one larger than the other, but both similar), that are like trowels—that are used for tooling the parts of the cane gather.

The most common beads we see in the marketplace that are derived from this work are the Indian copies of chevron and rosetta beads—that they have made since about 1985.

All of this composite work contrasts with the other cane manufactures, typical of Venice, that demand creating a gather that is hot-worked from its inception, involves layering (of other colors of glass) onto the base, and (in the instance of molded cane patterns) may be tooled via the use of an open dip-mold (such as what is now called an "optical mold" by today's glassworkers). Certain figural or semi-figural elements, usually found in the centers of mosaic-glass canes, are probably derived from a small gather that is tooled-to-shape. (I'm thinking of patterns such as the popular "rooster"—that could just as easily be a "duck," "gondola," or the letters "V" or "C.")

Needless to say, any hot-worked cane-gathers may be further elaborated by the inclusion or addition of preformed elements. As such, I characterize these as "hybrid canes" in my classification system (as shown in the article posted here). I also include, as hybrids, composited canes that have been made from hot-worked layered (and/or molded) elements.

As far as I know, to this day, there is still no cane-molding practiced in India. However, the Chinese have molded canes in the Venetian style since around the 1920s or '30s—and continue to do this—as we all know (!).

I hope this sheds some light.

Jamey