crushing glass for frits

[mikefromitaly]

hello friends.
i would like to know if i could crush my self glass to obtein frits,,,is there any method could i try?

thanks for support

mike from italy

[Cynthia]

You can heat your glass up in your kiln to over 500F, then pull it out and drop it into a bath of cold water (The hotter the glass and the colder the water the better it will crackle up). This thermal shocks it and makes the crushing easier. I crush it while it's still in the water by mashing with my feet, a mallet or any thing that will break it up. If you leave it in the water bath while you crush it, it holds the silica dust particles down and is safer. If you crush it dry, wear a respirator and do it outdoors or in a ventilated booth.

There are crushing devices you can make yourself too, but they are heavy and require too much effort for the small bits of glass you end up with in my opinion. You use a length of a largish metal pipe with a capped end to act as a sleeve. then you slide into that pipe/sleeve a smaller diameter pipe that will fit within the larger one, with a little room to spare so it will slide freely. Partially fill the larger capped pipe with bits of glass and use the smaller pile to crush by ramming the small pipe down into the glass bits. You will need a magnet to run through the frit you have made to remove any metal bits that were introduced from the process. Wear a respirator for working with this process to protect your lungs from the silica dust.

You can make screening boxes using different mesh sizes to sort out the glass as well. I made one with 1/4" hardware cloth stapled to a wooden frame. For the next size I crossed two sheets of the hardware cloth to make smaller openings, then on down to different mesh sizes of screening wire and fabrics to sift the glass through so I could sort the frit into it's different sizes all the way down to powder.

It's a lot of work, so I purchase frits now, but it's a viable approach to crush and screen your own. Especially if you don't need large quantities and are trying to save a little money.

[Liam]

or try this

http://stainedglass.dns2go.com/fritter/

Liam

[excell]

Cement/concrete mixer!

1, Remove any paint from inside the mixer.
2, Chop up a sheet of glass or use waste.
3, Throw glass in the mixer with a few heavy metal objects.
4, Cover the opening of the mixer to reduce dust.
5, Fit some extraction to the centre of the cover (optional but recommended) this must be allowed to swivel small vacuum cleaner is ideal.
6, Run for about 30 minutes and leave extraction on for another 2 minutes after.
7, Sieve through various sized sieves to get different grading.
8, Smaller frits will need to be run over with a magnet to remove any metal chips, this is best done with the magnet in a plastic bag. Run the magnet over the frit and then remove magnet from plastic bag and the metal chips will fall away.
9, Wash Frit dust by panning and leave somewhere warm to dry.

Voila!

ALWAYS WEAR A SUITABLE RESPIRATOR good luck. XL

[Bert Weiss]

Email John Groth waterjet@cpez.com He has made a frit grinder that works very well and is expensive but will pay for itself if you use a lot of frit. It works better than any of the other techniques described.

BTW I heat my glass up to around 1250ºF and dump it in to a plastic bucket of cold water to quench. The result is tempered glass frit. Once you crush it further it ends up with a lot of fines which is somewhat undesirable. I never had much luck with 500ºF which would not result in tempered glass.

[Stuart Clayman]

http://stainedglass.dns2go.com/fritter/

Liam

Liam,
Could not get the link to work.

Stuart

[Tony Serviente]

Boyce Lundstrom told a story about renting a leaf shredder and running glass through it. Was said to have worked well, but the blades did not benefit from the experience. Upon return to the rental company, they commented on how clean it was. Too bad Boyce does not post, as I am sure he dozens of stories share, and more to deny!

[camaro]

I use a coffee grinder, I cut glass into small pieces and insert push button and try to control the size of frit I need by the amount of pusing the button. It makes great pulvarized frit for painting, as well as med. of large frit pieces.
I bought my coffee grinder at the local Walmart, cheap. However do it outside, and please do wear a mask, when you open it causes alot of dust,
very unhealthly.

However I wll check out making my own as posted, not very good with electiricity.
camaro

[Jim Wixon]

Anyone ever use a ball mill?
jim

[Bellknap]

I use a coffee grinder too. Yes you have to be careful when opening, lots of dust. Check out your local Salvation Army or thrift store you can find lots of them cheap! Lydia of Ohio

[Bert Weiss]

Anyone ever use a ball mill?
jim

For most of what we want in the frit dept., fines are throw away. The ball mill makes fines.

I use a Steinert frit crusher made of a steel cup and piston that is blammed with a large hammer. It is slow and dusty though.

[Jim Wixon]

Bert Weiss wrote:
"For most of what we want in the frit dept., fines are throw away. The ball mill makes fines."

Are fines powders?
In the Corning dvd 'Pate de verre', Shin-ichi Higuchi
uses a ball mill to make his frit. He uses screens for the various sizes of frit. What am I missing ?
jim

[Liam]

Cement/concrete mixer!

Way too cool. I and my trash can fritter are humbled...

Liam

[Bert Weiss]

Bert Weiss wrote:
"For most of what we want in the frit dept., fines are throw away. The ball mill makes fines."

Are fines powders?
In the Corning dvd 'Pate de verre', Shin-ichi Higuchi
uses a ball mill to make his frit. He uses screens for the various sizes of frit. What am I missing ?
jim

Fines are powders. The larger the particle size the more clarity in the finished oject. Fines will produce an opaque object (no glow)