During our trip to Czech Glass Factories, we were able to see the making of various types of Czech Glass beads, including pressed beads, firepolished/cut beads, and table cut beads.

Czech table cut beads begin by going through the 'pressed' process, meaning that they are pressed into their given shape (often ovals, rectangles, squares), then tumbled and smoothed. Table cut beads are often then coated with a brown/dark carmel colored coating which is baked onto the outside of the beads (see above) using burners like shown below.

Next, those coated beads are affixed to a large disc like this one, then attached to one of two arms that lowers the disc with the beads face-down onto a spinning table.

As these two arms press the disc with beads against the table, the outside of the beads are cut down and scrapped away, revealing a cross section of the center of the bead, and smoothing this section as well.

When this has been done to both sides, one has the finished table cut bead with its exposed cross section.

There are many colors, shapes, and styles of table-cut beads, but each has the same process of cutting to reveal the center of the bead.