Newbie Question re: Making Frit

[asimeral]

Here I am again, asking elementary questions.

Aside from smashing it with a hammer, how do you all make your frit?

[framerak]

I warm the rod and then drop it in a pail of water. Drain the water and voila, frit! You can also make a simple frit smasher out of pipe fittings. Kind of a big tube with a screw-on bottom with a smaller tube to smash the glass inside it. Here's a better description:
http://shoozles-wearyourart.blogspot...lass-frit.html

[asimeral]

Angela, when you warm the rod, and drop it in a pail of water, how hot do you warm the rod? Glowing or? Sorry to be such a nuisance! And thanks so much for directing me to the "pipe" tute. My mind just doesn't work that way!

[rg9403]

check this video out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V2eCFsDkK0

[asimeral]

Wow! Thank you, rg9403! That was very cool! Also found a few others on there that were very interesting and informative!

[deirdreschaneman]

I use an old coffee grinder.

[SteveWright]

When I make a small amount of frit I heat up a gather, mash it into a lollipop and dip in a glass of water.

Steve

[asimeral]

Thanks so much for your imput, Steve and Deirdre. Both helpful suggestions!

So, what I have learned out of this question is, there are several different ways of making frit including:

1. Smash with hammer (which doesn't appeal to me)
2. Shocking hot glass with cold water (don't know why I didn't think of it!)
3. The "pipe in pipe" smasher
4. The old coffee grinder dedicated to making frit.

Thanks so much for all your excellent ideas!

[donia]

Here's a link to a search on this forum with many threads on making frit...

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/se...archid=3407275

[asimeral]

Hi Donia,

When I tried your link, all it gave me was a "no matches" msg. I did try searching for "Making frit", "make frit", and got lots of links that only had "making" and "frit" in the posts, but they were not about making the frit itself. Sigh... So, I asked the dumb question!

[bellavistaglass]

I have a few old metal incense burner/ashtray things hanging around the studio.... Every once in a while I take scraps and shocked bits of glass that flew onto the table...arrange a pleasing mix of colors and opacities and put them in the (heavy duty) dish, stick them cold into my annealer when I fire it up in the morning...When the annealer is up to temp and I am just about ready to make beads, I pick up the dish with welders gloves and tweezers and dunk the glass outta the dish into cold water...then finish up as described above..my own custom blends...easy shmeezy!
Good luck with yours!
Patricia

[Firebrand Beads]

best part of the cold water trick is it's clean. you never have to run a magnet through your frit for random metal flecks from the grinder blades.

[donia]

The link worked after I posted it and tried it. I just saw your post and tried it and it won't work. Sorry. Well here's another try...

I went to the search option, then at the bottom the Advance search. Set for titles only then put in the words making frit. I came up with a few really good threads on it...

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ht=making+frit

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ht=making+frit

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ht=making+frit

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ht=making+frit