Hey guys you're watching QDCrafts
and for the longest time you guys have
been asking me how I iron my perler
beads. It's one of the trickiest parts of
this craft because it's really easy to
over melt your beads and ruin the whole
project but it's also sort of tricky for
me to explain exactly how I do it since
my iron is probably different from yours.
Now this video is all about how I do
things so it may be different from what
others do and what you will eventually
do especially if you're still trying to
improve your ironing. Please don't forget
that there are many contributing factors
that may affect how well a peler bead
sprite is fused like the brand of beads
that you're using and the type of iron so
please don't expect to be able to
completely replicate my results since
everyone has a different ironing setup.
But anyway let's get started and
hopefully you'll learn something from my
ironing methods that you may apply to
your own. The iron that I use to fuse all
of my perler bead projects is this black and
decker
iron that my mom has had for 20 years so
I don't know if you can actually find
this in store anymore.
But anyway, it has seven different
settings like this and usually I set my
iron to number three which is medium and
the polyester setting for this iron. For
much larger projects I like to turn the
heat up a bit to around 4 but never more
than that and then for mini bead projects,
I will usually go with one. Once my iron
has preheated for around five minutes I
can usually feel the heat around this
area and it doesn't actually feel like
it's burning hot. It's more like a warm
toasty feeling so that's when I know I'm
ready to iron. As always I'm getting some
parchment paper or ironing paper so that
I can fuse the beads and the project I'm
working on today is Litten from
Pokémon Sun and Moon. It's actually the
starter that I chose so if you also
chose Litten, tell me in the comments
below. The first thing that I have to do
before ironing is to prepare the project
using some masking tape or painter's tape
which are really not that sticky and
will peel off easily later in the
process. All I'm doing is covering the
entire project with tape and making sure
that all of the beads are securely stuck
on it and will hopefully not fall off
later on when I flip the project over.
I've seen people poke holes using a
sharp object or a pen
through the tape and through every
single bead as a part of this method but
I haven't really seen a significant
benefit to this in my projects at least
so I'm just going to flip the project
over and begin the ironing process right
away. You can definitely try poking holes
if you have the time but I'm just saying
that I usually wouldn't do it and it
saves me a lot of time and effort
especially if I don't really notice any
difference to it. Now I'm just placing my
ironing paper on top of Litten, making
sure everything is covered and here's a
close-up of what the beads look like
before ironing. Once the beads are heated
you'll see them stick onto the paper and
that's when you know that they're fusing
Alright so this is a real time clip of
me ironing Litten to give you an idea
of how long it takes for me to iron a
perler bead sprite of this size. You can
see exactly how I'm moving the iron and
it's pretty much just in a circular
motion so that all of the beads will
melt together around the same time. The
perler company's instructions for
ironing state that it should usually
take around 20 to 30 seconds just to
fuse one side but my heat setting is
actually relatively low which makes it
take a lot longer just to fuse one side.
The benefit of me keeping my ironing
setting this low is that there's a much
lower chance of me over ironing my
project which is good. I definitely have
more control and it's easier to judge
when to stop ironing because I can see
the beads slowly becoming darker and
sticking on to the ironing paper.
Generally I want all the beads to melt
at the same time so that the spread will
be even and not over ironed in certain
areas and under ironed in others. But I
should note that some parts will melt
quicker at times than others as you can
see here where some beads are already
fused onto the paper while others aren't
fused yet. Usually it should be fine
because I make sure to always keep my
iron moving to different spots and I
also apply some additional pressure to
the iron sometimes if certain parts are
still not fused yet. This is the part
where I can't really explain what to do
because you don't know how hard and how
much pressure I'm applying
on to the perler bead sprite. You have to just
figure this out yourself when you try it
and get a feel for it. The only way to
improve your perler bead ironing is to
practice it and once you get the hang of
it I'm sure that you can achieve results
that are very similar to mine. Once you
see a solid imprint of the beads on the
ironing paper, you can see the colors
really clearly. I'm just flipping it over,
taking off all the tapes and doing the
exact same thing that I did before on
the other side. So this should usually
take around the same time as it did for the first side and again I'm just
applying a little bit of pressure moving
the iron in a circular motion and making
sure that I go over every single bead
and making all of them fuse together.
Before I forget I could also mention
where I learned this masking tape method
from. I think there's a channel called
Danthol42 that also has some perler
bead videos on it and he was one of the
original perler bead Youtubers I think.
There weren't that many at the time so
that's where I learned how to iron these
perler beads so well and using this
masking tape method. He does it
differently than I do of course because
I've eventually found my own way to do
it and I think you guys can do the same.
You can just use this as a bit of a tip
and guide but you don't have to follow
exactly what I'm doing to perfect your
perler bead ironing. I think this
Litten is coming along very well. It
looks like most of the beads are already
fused. You can see that there's a solid
color and solid lines on these perler
beads and I'm just going to get
something really heavy like this
chemistry book to squash it or if I'm
impatient which I am right now I can
kind of just take off the ironing paper
on both sides at the same time. I don't
know if this actually helps in keeping
the perler bead sprite even but I know
that every single time I peel it like
this it seems less likely for the
perler bead sprites to warp towards one side.
So it's pretty flat overall. Just to be
completely sure I still put something
really head
on top of it to make sure that it won't
bend any further as it cools. And that is
all there is to it. This is what I would
consider a perfectly ironed perler bead
sprite. It's pretty flat, everything's even
and I just want to show you the
difference between an iron and unironed
perler bead. The ironed perler bead is
about the same thickness as the white
one as you can see. That's why I keep my
heat setting pretty low and only apply a
little bit of pressure. This is what I
like to have as the thickness for a perler
bead sprite and you can adjust that if
you want but that's my masking tape
method. Now I'll be showing you how i
iron perler beads directly on the pegboard.
I want to point out that this Rowlet sprite
right here is very round and doesn't
actually have many protruding elements
to it so in this case I would be
comfortable
ironing directly on the pegboard since
the beads are less likely to be
misplaced and I'll show you what I mean
later on if it doesn't really make sense
right now. The only difference with
ironing a sprite on the pegboard is that
I have to be extra careful when moving
the iron and holding down the ironing
paper. Without the masking tape base that
I would have used to hold the beads in
place while ironing, it is much more
likely for the beads to move or get
tipped over if I accidentally lift the
ironing paper and caused some of the
beads to go out of place. That's why I
have to keep my iron pressed onto the
sprite all the times,
hold the ironing paper down and also try
not to lift the iron at any time because
it would risk displacing the beads. If
you're a beginner who hasn't really
gotten the hang of ironing perler beads
yet I'd stick with using masking tape
because it's just less troublesome since
the beads are less likely to move and
you also eliminate the chance of making
your pegboard warp out of shape which I
have heard does happen to people. I
personally have never had a problem with
ironing directly on the board probably
because I keep my heat setting not so
high and also because after I iron one
of the sides and flip this right over, I
press down
on the pegboard a bit and keep it face
down when it's cooling. It's just like
keeping a fused sprite flat. If I find
that a pegboard is slightly bending I
try to push down on the side that it's
bending up to and in a way push it back
to being flat. This is just what I do
every single time and I haven't had a
problem. I think you get the idea now and
hopefully those little tips that I
mentioned earlier will help with your
ironing. Now to finish off this Rowlet
sprite, I'm putting a very heavy object
on it to keep it flat and let's take a
look at my pegboard that is now cooled.
You see that there's no bend in it
anymore it's perfectly fine, reusable, good
for many more perler bead projects. But I
want to mention an observation that I
made in my years of ironing. You'll never
ever see me directly iron on one of
those clear peg boards. You know the ones
that you can see through. I don't know if
it's the plastic in the clear one but
when I ironed directly on the clear
pegboard, they would warp so easily even
though my iron is at the same heat
setting as it would be for when I ironed on
the yellow pegboard.
I don't know why this happens but it's
just something to take note of and maybe
remember when you're ironing. Peeling the
ironing paper off of perler bead sprites is
one of my favorite sounds and you'll
hear it in my satisfying perler bead moments
compilation if you haven't seen that
video already. And again it turned out
great. It's flat and the thickness of the
ironed beads is not far from an unironed
perler bead, which means that ironing
went well. You may think that there's not
a big difference between ironing
directly versus ironing with the help of
masking tape, but there is as you make
larger and larger projects. I might have
to do another ironing video for my large
perler bead projects, so tell me if you're
interested in that but I just wanted to
make sure that you guys understand the
basics of how iron perler beads first. And
remember how I said Rowlet has a round
shape and would be suitable to iron
directly on the pegboard? Well let's look
at a bunch of different sprites and
think about which method I would use.
Of course if you're a beginner I recommend
just going with masking tape but at
least you can see how I make my
decisions when it comes to different
perler bead projects and iron
them. For sprites that aren't too
complicated or kind of simple and small,
I would just go with a direct fuse like
I did for this mario star thing. More
complicated projects like Litten have
these dangerous parts where it could
potentially mess up, so masking tape.
And just like this Google t-rex, I never
used masking tape on it so I probably
should have done that. A Mario mushroom,
really round, very simple. I would just
go with direct fuse. Link I could go with
a direct fuse or masking tape depending
on my comfort zone
I remember for this one I just directly
fused it on the pegboard and there
wasn't any problem. Saitama, so round, I
would definitely just directly fuse it.
Smaller projects again, Pikachu, Fennekin,
really simple. I would just directly fuse
it on the pegboard again.
And Frogadier which is kind of like
Litten with this protruding part, I
would use masking tape. And then large
projects like this Tails, most definitely
I would use masking tape to help me out
because I really don't want to mess this
up. Fire Kirby has some complicated parts
at the top and it's really big, almost
taking up the whole pegboard, so I would
use masking tape. For this Goku again
with some spiky parts and it's super
long I used two peg boards to make this.
Most definitely masking tape.
And lastly with this happy face, it's just
another round, simple sprite. I would just
directly fuse this. Alright guys, thank
you so much for making it all the way to
the end of this video. Now that you've
seen how I iron my perler beads, it's time for
you to go out and practice this all for
yourself. Make a whole bunch of different
sprites and iron them. See which setting
is good for you on your iron. If it's a
little too hot just turn it down and
it's not hot enough just turn it up. You
just have to change things up, change
your method and that way you can develop
your own judgement and technique when it
comes to ironing perler beads nicely.
Before I go, I just want to show you my
first perler bead project. It is this
Pikachu here and the front side looks
pretty all right. It's a nice fuse and
everything is good put the back side
oh no.. it's kind of like over ironed and
definitely it took me so many tries to
get it right.
I made so many different sprites over
the years and then that way I got a lot
of practice in ironing. And of course
different people have different tastes
in ironing so maybe one day I'll do a
video on the different types of fuses.
There's like a hard fuse where it looks
completely pixelized, there's a regular
fuse. Also one where you just iron on one
side and then flip it over to the side
that's completely unironed. Watching a
video of me iron perler beads will not make
you perfect at ironing. You have to
really just try it out yourself, go
practice it and if you're really young
definitely ask a parent to help you out
because you may not have that much
control over an iron yet. It's really all
about trial and error and once you get
it down then you'll make a lot of really
cool perler bead sprites and they'll look
amazing. So thank you again for watching
and I hope you took something out of
this video and if there's anything I
missed or you want more information on
just leave a comment down below. For now
I have some more projects planned. Please
stay tuned, check out all my social media
down below and I will see you next time
with another QDCraft.