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Tips, Techniques, and Questions -- Technical questions or tips

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  #1  
Old 2006-10-02, 8:54am
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Default Frit / Enamel question

If enamel is just powdered glass, then what's the difference between enamel and powdered frit?
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  #2  
Old 2006-10-02, 8:56am
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Is this a riddle??

I guess I'd assume they're the same basic thing . . . . glass ground up so finely that it's powder.
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  #3  
Old 2006-10-02, 9:29am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GinnyHampton
Is this a riddle??

I guess I'd assume they're the same basic thing . . . . glass ground up so finely that it's powder.
Nope. It's a genuine question. Basically, I'd like to know the difference between the 2 so that I'll know why I should use one vs the other.

If there's no difference, then why would anyone choose enamels over frit powder? The frit color palette is much larger than the enamel, and less expensive.
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  #4  
Old 2006-10-02, 9:38am
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Ive wondered the same thing Shawnette
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  #5  
Old 2006-10-02, 9:48am
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Aren't enamels "treated" somehow? I know that when Tim was enameling jewelry, the enamels had to "stick" to the surface he was enameling, and I'm not sure "just glass" would...but who knows...I suspect a jeweler would be able to answer that question.
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  #6  
Old 2006-10-02, 10:12am
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Good question! If anyone knows, I'd like to hear it too.

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  #7  
Old 2006-10-02, 10:50am
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To my knowledge the only thing(s) that classify an enamel is that it is standardized to 80 mesh.. making it ideal for "enameling" applications..
I was looking at the Thompson enamel website and all I could find out is that they are lead-free..
The other option(s) they provide it different COE's allowing you to choose an enamel that can be applied to various metals from stainless steel to aluminum.. E.g high temp-low expansion, low-temp high expansion etc.. so that they cooperate with the properties of the metal during the firing process.
So if you have some moretti powder that is sifted to an 80 mesh granule size then you can pretty much call it enamel..IMO..Though I would rather pay for the enamel than make it myself due to the hazardous nature of glass powders. Direct exaust with a fume box is the ONLY way to deal with the stuff and you also need to think about where you are exausting the dust to be safe.
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  #8  
Old 2006-10-02, 11:35am
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I don't know the difference, but I do know that enamels melt at a lower temp and seem to leave a different texture on the surface. Also. when multiple colors of enamel are mixed together, they don't all blend, they stay seperate, unlike frit where the colors seem to blend together.
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Old 2006-10-02, 3:13pm
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I thought frit was like ordinary glass, more glass than pigment, but enamel is more pigment than glass? That's my understanding anyway.
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Old 2006-10-02, 9:04pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CorriDawn
I don't know the difference, but I do know that enamels melt at a lower temp and seem to leave a different texture on the surface. Also. when multiple colors of enamel are mixed together, they don't all blend, they stay seperate, unlike frit where the colors seem to blend together.
I was just going to say this too.
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Old 2006-10-02, 11:43pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WeeMary
I thought frit was like ordinary glass, more glass than pigment, but enamel is more pigment than glass? That's my understanding anyway.
This is my understanding of enamel vs glass powder. That is if my brain storage and retrieval system are still functional.

Char
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Old 2006-10-03, 12:18am
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I agree with Char and WeeMary. Enamels are stickier on the surface and if you want to add fine stringer work, it gets fuzzy and bleeds. Probably because of the denseness of the pigment.
This is the reason I was looking for Moretti powders Nette. I thought Howaco Glass stocked them at one time, but I don't see them on their site now.

H
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Old 2006-10-03, 2:49am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Holly Cooper
I agree with Char and WeeMary. Enamels are stickier on the surface and if you want to add fine stringer work, it gets fuzzy and bleeds. Probably because of the denseness of the pigment.
This is the reason I was looking for Moretti powders Nette. I thought Howaco Glass stocked them at one time, but I don't see them on their site now.

H
She only has the frit. You can grind the frit into powder in a coffee maker. Bill Thornton carries powder sometimes (islandglas!!! on Ebay):

http://stores.ebay.com/Moretti-and-M...QQftidZ2QQtZkm
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Last edited by shawnette; 2006-10-03 at 2:54am.
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  #14  
Old 2006-10-03, 4:24am
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According to Kate Fowle, whose class I took recently, in addition to being low temp, enamels are also non-reactive to silver... clearly not the case with frit!

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Old 2006-10-03, 5:18am
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Not reactive to silver? If you mean that when you put enamel over silver leaf, or especially visa versa, there is no reaction, I would disagree. When you put pink over silver you get brown, purple over silver you get green and others react as well. Maybe I am mis-understanding what she meant?
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  #16  
Old 2006-10-03, 5:26am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Holly Cooper
I agree with Char and WeeMary. Enamels are stickier on the surface and if you want to add fine stringer work, it gets fuzzy and bleeds. Probably because of the denseness of the pigment.
This is the reason I was looking for Moretti powders Nette. I thought Howaco Glass stocked them at one time, but I don't see them on their site now.

H
Howaco now has a size 00 Moretti frit. They say it is "part powder, part a little grainy". I can never find the Moretti frits from the Howaco home page, so I bookmarked it the last time I found it:
http://www.howacoglass.com/morettifrit2.html
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Old 2006-10-03, 6:04am
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The biggest difference is in the C O E of the enamels can be over a hunderd numbers or more due to the agents used in its coloring. You can get frit for enameling they are larger sized chunks. the frit and frit powder for the lampworking are all made for the same C O E of glass like the rod. So they have the same cooling time line. You can make frit from the rod by using a glass masher. And then with the smaller sized paritcles are further ground using a mortar/pestle and worked thru the correct sized mesh screen. The screening is so the powder is the small size, so its melting point is the same.

I think the confusion goes in from the fact that you have copper tube based beads being made with frit and enamel powder/flux. and then when people moved on to lamp work/solid glass beads some of the terms get miss used and it becomes urban myth type stuff. Pam East's enamel on copper tube was an updated technique that thompsons enamels had a booklet out in the late 60's
http://www.thompsonenamel.com/
They do have a great web site and some of the small booklets they sell are full of info.
They also have leaded enamel they use to sell that you can't mix with the non leaded enamel.
The the enamels are used for a thin even layer over the base metal sheet. Soft glass beads are more three D in size and shape due to the thickness, the C O E has to be the same so the colors of the glass can mixed and cool all at the same rate.
Frit is usually a mixture of different sized chunks of glass. 6/20 is a frit size what it means is that the glass can pass thru a screen with 6 holes per square inch to a scren with 20 holes per square inch or anything between the numbers.
Frit in enamel work has been used for giving large irregular shaped color burst and if used against a 240 mesh enamel grounding color. A texured surface treatment if pulled from the heat before it melts smooth.

So the important thing to remeber is the C O E of the frit powders and rod you are using.

I make copper tube beads with 40 year old leaded Thompsons enamel and frit and threads and it works out. When I tried to mix and match glass it didn't work at all. I can see where it would cause a great deal of beating the head against the wall!
http://www.pinzart.com/
http://www.glass-on-metal.com/main.htm
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  #18  
Old 2006-10-03, 3:12pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amybfromtc
According to Kate Fowle, whose class I took recently, in addition to being low temp, enamels are also non-reactive to silver... clearly not the case with frit!
Kate may have been referring to a specific type of enamel. I'm not an enamelist, but I know there's a special type of enamel that's "clear for silver" that is specially formulated not to react with silver. It's created because some colors of regular enamels do react with silver, just like some colors of Effetre react with silver. You know how rubino goes greenish when you put it with silver? Pink and red enamels do that when you try to use them on silver. (If you look at the intro kit that Whole Lotta Whimsy sells for enamelling on PMC, you'll see it has lots of lovely blues, greens, and lavenders -- not so much with the reds, oranges, and pinks!) To prevent that, you use the special clear between the silver and your reactive color.

Now, whether the Thompson enamels that have been specially formulated to use with Effetre/Moretti react with silver, I don't know. That may have been something that the people at Thompson were careful about when they created those.
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Old 2006-10-05, 4:15am
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Hmmm... maybe I am remembering the information incorrectly... will have to refer back to class notes!! I know that she was speaking specifically of the Thompson enamels for 104 glass.

Sorry if I gave misinformation!
Amy
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Old 2006-10-05, 8:46am
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I don't know the technical reasons behind why they are different but they are definitely different. I thought the same thing (that they were the same) a while back and ordered some powdered frit and it totally acted different. The frit I tried was Reichenbach and not 104coe though.
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Old 2006-10-05, 8:03pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Judi_B
Howaco now has a size 00 Moretti frit. They say it is "part powder, part a little grainy". I can never find the Moretti frits from the Howaco home page, so I bookmarked it the last time I found it:
http://www.howacoglass.com/morettifrit2.html
Thank you Judi!
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Old 2006-10-11, 2:37pm
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Just as a follow-up, I took an enamelling on PMC class last weekend, and the teacher (who was a jeweler and metalsmith, not a lampworker) said that enamels were glass with an added colorant. Enamels unquestionably do react with silver, and I wasn't completely correct when I talked about the "clear for silver" solving the problem. It provides something of a barrier, but apparently the only way to get good, true colors on silver for any color with red tones (red, orange, purple -- I didn't ask about yellow) is to use enamels that contain lead, which are hazardous to use. For a long time, Thompson Enamels didn't even carry leaded enamels. They've started to sell them again recently. Even then, it's not as easy as it sounds. Enameling has all kinds of funky little compatibility rules -- who knew? But it's glass, after all -- should have expected it.

(Another method for getting a better color from warm-toned enamels on silver is to use gold foil as a barrier between the enamel and the foil. Can you say "expensive PITA?" and it's still not quite a true red.)

The "geranium pink" in our kit of enamels for the class came out orange. Our kit didn't include purple, but the purple in the pieces the instructor showed us was more like a muddy brown. Yuck. If I didn't like blue and green, I wouldn't bother with enameling on silver at all (but the blues and greens are pretty pretty pretty, and with PMC you can do a texture that shows through a thin layer of transparent enamel.)

And now back to the glass bead world . . .
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