As I have no gas at the moment I have been re-reading all my books torching and today I saw an article on Frit Stringers and remembered a problem I have been having and kept meaning to put up.
I make a frit stringer by heating the end of the rod into a ball then putting that ball into a pot of frit. Melt all the frit in 'well' and then pull like a normal stringer but mine ALWAYS come out lumpy. I don't just mean little bumps but actual lumps of frit in the stringers. The last one I made was ivory rod with a black frit (I think) and when I went to pull the stringer although I had spen an absolute age melting the frit in the tweeezers basically pulled the frit off.
It was exactly as though I had a sainsburys cheese and tomato pizza which I had burnt in the over. If you pull on the charred cheese it comes away in one go leaving the rest of the pizza and tomato topping behind.
Any pointers?
mine always come out like that too, but thats the beauty of them,I like the fat and the thin...however if you want them more even you can take another rod and use it to mix the frit right in, but then you lose the colour if its a blend....or use a light or clear reichenbach rod to pull it from ;)
I prefer to roll the end of the rod across frit on my marver, leaving the tip of the gather clear. You can then grab the "base" glass with the tweezers, and the frit is all down the sides. Wastes less frit in the end blob too!
I like to use clear as the basis, roll in frit and melt in slightly, then encase with clear again. Melt in well. Then I twist as I pull and the result is a kind of quick to make latticino-like thing.