Improved Smalti

The new Mud Turtle Mosaic brand of smalti was selected based on how well the material cuts, and it is competitively priced. The material appears to be more homogenized and have fewer cold seams than most art glass products because it tends to break more predictably and produces fewer useless shards.

Smalti is hand-cut mosaic glass that is made according to traditional formulas of sand, lime and mineral pigments. Our smalti is hand cut, and the composition is more or less the same as other brands of smaltis. The critical difference is that we have it produced in a factory that makes modern molded glass tile, which means the smalti is made in slightly larger batches and handled more consistently to avoid cold seams when the molten glass is poured on the cooling slab.

Cold seams are where two wrinkles or bulges of glass came together but didn’t fully fuse. You encounter them a lot in stained glass from when the different colors are swirled together. That is why stained glass (and a lot of smalti) shatters so unpredictably when you attempt to cut it small. I am eager to get feedback on this new product.