Fritting the Sides
 

I always seem to have trouble getting frit everywhere I need it to be and then the solution hit me... so I wrote a quick tut:

http://hollysfollybeads.blogspot.com...ing-sides.html

And that motivated me to to create a page for all my tuts:
http://hollysfollybeads.blogspot.com/p/tutorials.html

Clever idea! Missing frit on the side drives me nuts too.

Alli

Interesting idea. Thanks for posting.

I put frit on the bead while it's still in disc form, first one side of the disk against my marver, then the other, then the center ridge. Then I melt it down to round. Covers the whole bead very nicely, but probably only works for round beads, and if you're not careful, the frit may stretch a bit.

Melissa, Yes, I have the stretching issue which I don't really like....8-(

So I often preshape and then frit.

This is a good idea for deep indents and such.

For the sides I put Frit in a spoon and spot heat the area to pick up Frit. The spoon really gives you the maneuverability around the bead in most any shape. I have a few different sizes on hand.

Jaci, I tried that too... but I work HOT... and the spoon gets too hot for me! I kinda freak when that happens. ;-)

Thanks
 

Hey Holly,
Cool tip, thanks :)

8-D

Cool idea! I roll mine in frit before shaping, I like the way it spreads with the extra heating. I use a metal measuring cup (Ikea) and dump a whole bunch of frit in it, make the bead toward the end of the mandrel and when it's good and hot, roll in the frit. Heat slowly to make sure the frit doesn't stick to the mandrel on the ends, then shape.

Very cool idea,Holly :) I like it!

Sheila, I always end up with frit that looks stretched like when I work like that and... I tend to run out of frit. I prefer to work with small amounts of it anyway as it's really easy to contaminate your frit. The bead in the tut was to contain cremains... and I got too many ashes in on my first pass. When I went to pick up frit... ashes in the frit! I had to toss it!

Many of the teachers I've studied with THROW OUT their frit at the end of a session (me?? I'm way too cheap!) and having had a bead shatter over my frit plate and bead release breaking off... I can get their logic.

Thank you for the tip, Holly. Sometimes when I'm making my goddesses I need a bit of frit on a boob, or a bum, or a dimple and I've puzzled over how to get just the right amount in just the right place and I think this is going to work beautifully. Thanks for sharing.

Great idea! Thanks for posting!

Today, I tried taking a bead... making sure I had enough (or almost enough) glass by pressing it, melting it back round, rolling in frit and repressing... Not only was this overly tedious (shaping it twice), I STILL has a frit-less spot and ended up doing it like in the tut to fix!