Frit

[Theresa]

Does anyone make their own frit or class chunks?

What do you use to make it?


What I want are small pea size pieces. Any ideas?

[Stephen Richard]

Put fusible glass frit of the one colour in a stainless steel bowl, put in kiln and heat to about 200-300C.  Pull it out with gloves, straight into a bucket of water.  The shock will crack the glass into pieces dependent on temperature.  Generally, the higher the temperature the smaller the pieces.

Dry, then seive through varoious sized screens.  If needed you can put the fractured pieces in a bag and hit it with a hammer. Make sure you get rid of the powder in a way that you cannot breathe it in, nor can the rubbish disposal people.

[Anne]

I have a frit maker and various sieves.  But before I had that I took a rectangular box, cut a hole in the top that was big enough to work in, put my glass pieces on a steel plate in the box and hit them with a hammer.  My box was about 5 inches deep so it caught the glass inside it.  I pounded till I had pieces of glass the size I wanted.  Primitive, but it works.

[Becki]

Depending on how many "pea sized" chunks you need you might want to cut narrow strips and cut them with a wheeled mosaic nipper.  I stopped making my own frit years ago...too tedious and time consuming.