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Welcome to the New Year..
Hopefully, 2010 will be great for all of us. We have great plans for Art Glass News (AGN) for the coming year. We are planning on having our website up and running by the end of February. Our goal is to provide product reviews, including new tools, glass, and tutorials. At the bottom of this page, we have added a PayPal button for your support.
Thank you in advance! Lets make 2010 the best year Ever!
Making Frit! On Purpose.
We have all had a rod explode on us when we didn't want it to. Making frit is just controlling that popping and then refining the pieces when you are  done. You will need the following:
Glass ( of course)
Bare Scrap Mandrel
Clean COLD Water
Strainer
Frit Smasher*
Magnet
Screens for sizing the frit (Optional)
Of course, the first and hardest part of making frit is choosing the colors. For this example, I choose Candy Apple Red and Cobalt Blue. Melt your glass into a paddle at the end of your mandrel. The bigger and thinner the paddle, the smaller your beginning frit will be. Once the paddle is red hot, dip it into the cold water. You will hear the glass start to break apart. As it falls off the mandrel, used the mandrel to break up the bigger pieces in  the water. The pieces are cool almost instantaneously so go ahead and strain them right away.
At this point, you can check the size of the pieces and determine if they are small enough for your use. If you want it smaller, time to get out the Smasher. I prefer to let the glass dry before smashing it up. The wet glass has a tendency to stick to the sides of the smasher.
Using the smasher is easy, just poor the small bits of glass into the top of the pipe and smash the top piece down on them. I smash about 10 times then poor out the pieces and check for size. I then toss the large pieces in and do it again. That's it. Frit made on purpose.
Hints
I use old bent mandrels when I melt glass directly onto the steel. No matter how hard I try, I can never get a mandrel smooth after I have melted the glass to it.
When making the paddle, you can either make one paddle per color or combine all the colors together. Separately will give you more definitive dots while combining them will give you dots that have multiple colors.
I usually use my shorts to make the frit since I just make up enough for what I am working on at the moment. If you wanted to make larger amounts, I would male numerous small paddles instead of one great big paddle.
* To make a Frit Smasher you need a 6 inch piece of 1 1/2 inch steel pipe with cap and an 8 inch piece of 3/4 inch Steel Pipe with cap. The 3/4 inch piece will fit inside the 1 1/2 inch piece and you can smash the glass between the pieces.
Art Glass News Website
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Lori & Kim News
Lori and Kim are still making great Murrini and this week they are having a Grab Bag special. Check out their new website for all the details.
Coming Next Issue:
More Vendor Spotlights
Hearts Aplenty
Tutorial Review
DON'T FORGET TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS
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