CARRYING TORCH FOR HIS CRAFT : NEWHALL MAN CREATES SHINY CRYSTAL CASTLES IN GLASS-MELTING FIRE.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

What Tom Beam does is so novel that thousands of people have watched him at amusement parks across Southern California. But to Beam, who makes glass figurines from a messy garage workbench in Newhall, he's just an average craftsman.

``There are people who are striving to be real artists and developing techniques. That's not me. I do what I do.''

Walt Disney was still alive when Beam, now 51, was hired to work on Main Street at Disneyland in the early 1960s. Beam has spent most of the 30 years since then entertaining tourists at Magic Mountain, Universal Studios, Busch Gardens, the Queen Mary, the Japanese Deer Park in Buena Park and the Disneyland Hotel.

``You're on show and you have to constantly remind yourself of that. People don't understand the monotony - that people are asking the same questions,'' he said. ``They don't realize how exhausting it can be.''

Although Beam is modest about his skills, he is usually billed as one of only three people in Southern California who can do some of the things he does, especially with large glass creations.

Lately he has been specializing in oversized castles and Cinderella coaches for Disneyland. Disneyland buys them from him, reselling them at the park for as much as $700.

``I used to make all the figurines: the dwarfs, Mickey, Goofy, . . . but we're not allowed to make them anymore.''

Now those figurines are made in molds in other countries where labor is cheaper, Beam said. ``It can be manufactured in molds with more clarity and precision than it can be done by hand,'' he said. But the figures also lose any individuality.

``I could tell who made something by looking at the style and technique,'' Beam said.

Beam, a single parent with two children and a grandson, creates the glass figures to eke out a living, not because it's a unique hobby. He puts in a full workday, often waking before dawn to start a 12-hour shift.

He uses a stationary blowtorch in his work. As he starts work, he stands at his table in the corner of the garage, surrounded by tools, a free-weight set and mountain bicycles hanging along the walls. Beam's workbench is covered with pincher pliers, a putty knife, huge tweezers and other tools of his craft, including some homemade, as well as a TV set and a few other distractions.

The torch's flame reaches 5,000 to 6,000 degrees. He takes a long stick of glass in each hand. The ends of the sticks meet and mingle in the flame, reaching 1,200 degrees before Beam starts rotating the melting glass into a ball between the sticks. He then uses one of the sticks to stretch and loop and dabble the hot glass into patterns on the other stick.

``You just bend it. It's pretty simplistic,'' he contends.

But few have his skill, and so watching him work has been popular in many amusement parks over the years.

He has been doing this work - either in public at the parks or in the solitude of his garage - for three decades. He is certain, he says, that for him, it's just a job, and there are more important things in his life.

But there is ``the type of person who, no matter what you're going to do, you want to do it well,'' Beam said. ``You end up being good despite yourself.''

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3 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Tom Beam creates a small glass castle at his home workshop in Newhall. He attracts audiences when he makes glass ornaments at theme parks.

(2--Color) A miniature crystal castle is sculpted in minutes at artist Tom Beam's workbench. He has worked with glass for more than 30 years.

(3) Tom Beam blows a glass ball for one of his creations sold at sites including Disneyland.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News