WarmGlass.com

Hello glass community!

We developed a new tool for drawing with sand: The Sand-Pen
It is a nice tool for doodlers artist and children.

But what is most important: It also can be used with glass frit or powder!

We are currently running a kickstarter campaign to realize the Sand-Pen and would really love to hear your suggestions about it!
Please share our campaign with other artists!

Here is the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/703010673/sand-pen
And the update with a video using glass frit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/703 ... -pen/posts

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sandpen

Kind, Regards, Ben and Rosi

Hello and welcome, Ben and Rosi! I actually backed you on kickstarter, so I'm anxious to see how your pen works with frit.

I was going to suggest that you add some information on working with glass frit to your kickstarter page. If you'd like some help with that, feel free to private-message me.

Thanks--

--cynthia

Hello Cynthia!

It would be great if you tell us how you (or other artists) currently work with powder /frit.
How thick is the glass layer?

Thanks a lot for backing!

Ben and Rosi

Ooh! I like this much more than the powder-vibe I have, so I've kicked in. Can't wait to see it come to fruition!

Can you post a reviews of the powder vibe? Do you have the original one or the 2nd version? Or you can pm me with your review if you feel more comfortable with that. I would appreciate the info.


Thanks - Terry

It would be great if you could have a similar tool for courser frit.

Courser frit makes a more transparent/translucent glass.

Terry Ow-Wing wrote:Can you post a revies of the powder vibe? Do you have the original one or the 2nd version? Or you can pm me with your review if you feel more comfortable with that. I would appreciate the info.


Thanks - Terry

I ordered a powder vibe recently, and I'm just not feeling the love. I guess I need to give it another try .

Dana

@Peter
What grain size is the courser frit? How do you use it at the moment ?

Why $50,000..... Seems extreme to me!

There are so many different colors and COEs of glass that we work with. If they are refillable, I think you should market them to glass artists empty. And yes, it would be better if they worked with the fine frit, not just powder. Would it even be possible to make one to work with the medium or coarse?

These are the mesh sizes for Bullseye frit:
Powder (-08)- Size is .2 mm and finer
Fine Frit (-01)- Size is .2 to 1.2 mm
Medium Frit (-02)- Size is 1.2 to 2.7 mm
Coarse Frit (-03)- Size is 2.7 to 5.2 mm

Spectrum and Uroboros are different.

I'd be concerned about how long the motor that does the vibration would last and if the length of time would justify what ever the cost for these would be. When you think an artist (or even a kid playing with sand) might be using it for hours at a time, that's a lot of wear on such a tiny little motor, not to mention battery life. The other thing that comes to mind is that sand is a lot more rounded than glass frit is, so it doesn't need as much vibration to get it to flow. Glass frit is jagged, pointy and is going to catch and snag against each particle of glass, so it's going to either need a bit more vibration or a bigger nozzle hole. Too big of a whole and it's going to come out to fast, to small and it won't come out at all or very slowly. The size of the tube seems pretty small for doing any larger amount of work with it. It may be a good size for doing small designs and touch ups, but again, will the cost justify how much it will be used?

The idea is good in that the vibrator is at the tip rather than further back like the Power Vibe. That's the first think I noticed when I saw the Power Vibe and figured it would be awkward to use. I have the air pen and it works pretty good for laying down lines and other designs... once you get it flowing correctly, which I think takes up more time and effort than I feel it's worth so I never use it. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that the manual tubes, bent cards and other devices that are already available will work as good if not better and most of them are free or very cheap to make. Good luck with your kick starter.

Mike

[quote="JestersBaubles


I ordered a powder vibe recently, and I'm just not feeling the love. I guess I need to give it another try .

Dana[/quote]


What specifically is not feeling right? Too much powder coming out or too little or too hard to co-ordinate the flow of the powder with the "drawing" that you need to make? Or?


thanks in advance....

Thanks for your suggestions!

@Laurie: 50000$ seems really a lot, but if we reach this goal we not even make profit!

@Michele: I cannot imagine that it would really make sense to draw with coarse frit? But perhaps you can answer this.

@Mike: The motors are designed for longlasting life (10000hours), and the battery lasts for about 10 to 12 hours. That means you can actually draw up to 30 hours!
I think that the Sand-Pen will be a good tool for powder and fine frit. But with some modification it maybe can also be used with bigger frit.
Then it has to be another approach, as you said it would be too tricky with the correct hole size! We keep this in mind.

We will redesign the final Sandpen because we got a lot of feedback from our current prototype tester.

Ben

Please make sure that you keep the forum in the loop, I can imagine that many more of us would be more interested in purchasing one when you get them rolling. Good luck.

Terry Ow-Wing wrote: What specifically is not feeling right? Too much powder coming out or too little or too hard to co-ordinate the flow of the powder with the "drawing" that you need to make? Or?

I think the biggest thing is the place where you need to press to get the powder flowing is near the middle of the "pen", rather than closer to the tip. This makes it awkward (when I write, I hold a pen closer to the tip than the middle), and you don't have as fine of control as you would if you engaged the vibration nearer to the tip.

Dana W.

Terry, if you Google powder vibe you'll probably find lots of posts about it. I believe it's sold through Delphi where people might have reviewed it. I bought mine several years ago, when it was first launched. Essentially, it's a Hummingbird tooth flosser that's been modified with a magnet on the tip to hold tiny metal tubes you can fill with frit. It's awkward for many reasons: the tubes are very tiny so they're a bit of a pain to fill, the holes at the tip clog easily, the tubes are metal so you can't see when you're about to run out of material, you're pressing the on button in your hand but the tip extends a few inches beyond that, so it can be difficult to 'write' smoothly, and you have to keep holding the button on to keep it powered. Oh, and it took over eight weeks to be delivered and cost around $60 (when I purchased). It sat on my shelf for a couple years before I started using it and now I find it handy when I want to draw a few precise lines. The Sand Pen demos looked simpler, and I like the larger transparent tube, and the hand grip looks more natural. For $45, it's worth a try and hopefully will help support their project.

Valerie,
Let us know how you like it.

Barry

A really inexpensive powder and fine frit drawing tool.
Now this sounds silly, but I have tried it and it works wonders.
Go to your Sally Beauty store and buy some of the applicator bottles that have the cone tip on them
NOW, the secret, Cut the spout to let the correct amount of powder of fine frit out.
Works like a charm.
It might take a little experimenting, but at $1.49, you can do a lot of experimenting.
Jim

We will post an update on our kickstarter site in the next few days (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/703010673/sand-pen)

We tested glass frit and powder from a germany manufacturer: Reichenbach. Do you have experience with their products, and are the easy available in the US?
Or should we concentrate on bullseye glass frit ?

Thanks a lot, Ben

Hi Ben,

I just backed you on kickstarter so I am hoping you get your target amount. I am anxious to try the pen out. Keep us posted. I am sure there are a lot of distributors that would be interested in your pen for use with glass powders.

Vicki