Frit Balls
A couple of times a year, I clean some scrap glass, line my kiln with shelf paper, put some slow but satisfying music on loud in the garage (I'm often grateful to have really good speakers in our garage), and start the painful process of making frit balls.
It's painful because none of the pieces can touch each other or be too close to each other. It takes time and attention to move each one into place, and you can't be in a hurry. And for some reason, blasting music and singing along somehow makes the process a lot less irritating.
Once the entire kiln shelf is finally filled, I fire up the kiln hot and fast and those misshapen little chunks turn into perfectly round balls.
Up until recently, my only purpose for creating these balls was to make eyeballs for snowmen, birds, fish and other little animal themed Christmas ornaments, and as colored balls for little Christmas trees. I keep a bucket of these balls and don't usually think about them until September when I start making Christmas ornaments for craft markets.
This week, however, I was feeling creative and got the urge to dump the whole bucket full of balls onto a circle of kiln paper to see what would happen. I've been trying to follow any creative urges that come my way because I find they are taking me in new and interesting directions. So, I'm working on spending a lot less time planning and sketching, and a lot more time just getting into my craft room and playing around.
So I dumped the bucket of frit balls onto a sheet of shelf paper and then debated for a while what temperature I should cook it at. I wanted some dimension or texture so you could see these were little connected individual pieces but I worried if they didn't have a secure enough bond, they'd separate once I put them on a stainless steel draping mold. I've had a few things pull apart and sag onto the kiln shelf in a similar situation and I didn't want to lose all this fun and random color to a firing accident.
I hoped 1400 F would retain a bit of texture while creating a secure bond for slumping, and it definitely worked. If I could go back, I might fire to 1350 or 1360, but I think it's close enough.
This happy little experiment totally invigorated me. Now I'm game to chop up every ugly bowl, platter and suncatcher I've made in my first three years of playing around. I'm thinking there are a lot of little balls in my future.
Normally, when you take little pieces of frit and make balls, you only need to fire to 1500 F and then shut the kiln off. Since I'm making big balls (some the size of glass pebbles) I wanted to give the glass enough time to fully ball up, and also I wanted to throw in some annealing time so they'd be stable for re-firing down the road, without any threat of shattering or cracking.
So, this is my Big Frit Ball Firing Schedule (system 96):
Ramp Rate Temp Time
9999 1500 20
9999 950 60
