Paté de Verre

-  is an  ancient process of grinding glass into a powder, adding color, placing in a mold and heating it so the powder became molten. Basically an early rhinestone.

I have been trying this process and placing the glass powder or small grains of glass on specific areas of my project. I haven't found out an easy way to crush the glass yet. I have had some good results, and some questionable results with this process. I would like to have a easer way of crushing the glass without having it flying all over my studio when I'm trying to grind it, even when I cover the mortar. I have even tried covered the glass with different materials I want to pulverize and hit it with a hammer. Placing the pulverized glass directly onto the project gives the project a very interesting look. In some instances it sparkles, in other instances it gives a textured appearance. Keeping it in place when firing is the hard part. I'm still working on this phase of the glass work.   

How about an electric coffee grinder??

I pulverize my dried out metal clay with it and it works great!!

Let me see your project when it is complete-

Hallo Charles,

To prevent that the coarse glass or enamel parts flies through the workshop, embark it into an old towel or so. Lay the towel with the glass onto a hard surface and break it with a hammer into small pieces. The small pieces become next crushed into a porcelain mortar.

One problem at crushing the enamel in a porcelain mortar is that the Mortar slips to and fro on the bench. To prevent this, one can produce a little "helper".

Into a hard wooden board becomes cut a conical opening, which corresponds approximately to the mean diameter of the porcelain mortar. The Mortar-bottom should not poke out of the board. If so, line it with a second board with a conical hole. 

Glue into the opening some thicker rubber-strips. Use water resistant glue. Screw the board with the hole onto a on the sides larger board of 15-20 mm thickness. With clamps can this construction become mounted to the bench. This construction is proven and makes the crushing much more easily. Fasten it with clamps onto your bench

Also if you grind glass or enamel in a mortar, the splitter flies out of the mortar. To prevent this, the mortar gets a cover with a hole for the pestle. I made it from a plastic-sheet. And because the hard plastic sheet clacked very loud onto the mortar-edge, I glued some strips of window caulking strip onto the back of the plastic.

The Workbook" von Thompson Enamel, P. O. Box 310, Newport, KY 41072, USA, describe detailed, how to grind enamel effective and quick. If you do not have the workbook I can send you this description by a personal E-Mail.

Breaking the glass in a coffee-crusher is not such a good idea. The beater is too soft for glass or enamel. It tattered in a short time and you have a lot of very small splinter in the crushed glass/enamel. And because the beaters mostly are from stainless steel, it can't be remove it mechanical or chemical.

Edmund

Edmund and Charles, have you seen this "frit maker"? It might be overkill but something similar could be made easily. http://www.sgw.net/CatPages/NewItems/HotGlass/FritMaker/FritMaker.html

Hallo Candy,

thank you for the tip. I have a similar tool. I'm not a friend of it, because it is, despite magnet or acid very difficult, the metal-particle complete to remove.

Edmund

I hadn't thought about metal particles. That would certainly preclude using it. Thanks.

When I'm grinding enamels with a mortar and pestle, I've found I have better results if I grind smaller amounts of glass more frequently, instead of a bunch of glass all at once.

That's because with small amounts of glass, I'm crushing a glass fragment with the pestle (hard) against the mortar (also hard).  If I use a lot of glass at once, I'm crushing a glass fragment with the pestle (hard) against another piece of glass (not so hard, and it absorbs force due to a matrix of odd shaped sizes) against another piece of glass (ditto) against the mortar (hard).  I just put my hand over the mortar and put a bit of water into it when I'm trying to crush a bigger nugget.

Of course, if I was working with really large glass nuggets, then I would use some of the other methods listed here.