Making glass frit & powder

Today was a rainy Saturday so I figured it would be a good day to make some glass frit & powder. I want to do some floral decor glass pieces for spring so I wanted some greens for grass, yellow for sun & flower centers, white for accents & pastels for the spring flowers. I started with a lovely dark green. I suspect it is Bullseye glass adventurine green, but I bought it at a glass shop that had gotten it in an estate sale and it wasn’t marked.

I had previously made frit at my mentor’s studio in Florida but this was my first time doing it in my studio. Everything went very well but I definitely think I would like this better sitting out on my deck. While pulverizing the glass with the metal piston there is a fine glass dust that comes out and a few fine frit pieces came out as well when I pulled the top off the piston to pour the glass into the sifters. It wasn’t difficult to clean up but would certainly be easier outside.

Prior to this I have been buying frit & powder but it is much less expensive to make it from sheet glass. Additionally doing it myself allows me to control the colors and amount. I like being self sufficient, especially since I now live a longer distance from the nearest glass supply shop.

First up on this rainy Saturday is this lovely dark green I pulled out my frit piston and my protective gear and cut the pieces up into smaller pieces so they would fit in the piston.

Making frit & powder is a great arm workout!

After some vigorous work the glass is ready for the first sifting. I got a decent amount of frit & powder and then put the extra course pieces back into the piston for another round of pulverization. Then I filled the containers with the different textures of ground glass.

I separated the ground glass into very course, course, medium & fine frit as well as powder. Once I had the glass separated into the containers I ran a magnet through the glass to remove the metal particles that are in the glass from the piston & filtering process. This is an important step as the metal could damage my kiln upon firing.

Now that I have finished the dark green frit & powder, time to work on some more lovely spring colors so I can start creating!