All Frit, No Fret

The Ferro Corp. of Cleveland is the world's largest maker of frit. Frit? Yes, frit. Ferro's main product is a powdery flaked glass that melts at 1,500DEG heat into the chief ingredient of porcelain enamel, the familiar coating on bathtubs, basins and ceramic tile. Since many appliances are also sprayed with or submerged in frit, Ferro is profiting not only from the U.S. appliance boom but from the rapidly expanding appliance market abroad. This week Ferro announced an 8% gain in first-quarter sales to $21 million; with 1963 sales that hit a record $80.7 million, the company expects to reach $115 million within five years.

Frit is made from paper-thin sheets of glass that are broken up by vibration, then placed in spinning drums filled with balls, where the glass is pulverized into powder. The use of frit--the name is unaccountably derived from the French frit, or fried--is an ancient art. The Egyptians excelled in making jewelry ornamented with frit, and the British Museum owns a fritted warrior's shield more than 1,000 years old. Now that the art has become a thriving modern industry, there are plenty of frit makers. Ferro has managed to outsell all of them and corner 12,500 international customers by setting up frit plants wherever customers can be found. Besides its three main U.S. plants it has built twelve overseas, has also engineered 400 enameling factories for customers to whom it then sells raw frit. Last week President Harry T. Marks was in India negotiating to build a Ferro-owned frit plant in Calcutta.

The company has diversified into chemicals, fiber glass and heating units, but frit still accounts for 45% of its sales. Though enamel has largely disappeared from pots and pans, and stoves are often made of stainless steel nowadays, Ferro has made up for such losses by aggressively seeking out new uses for frit. The material is now used on classroom chalkboards, automobile mufflers and jet-engine afterburners. Ferro also turns out frit-based golf-hole markers and road markers, is developing a fertilizer business in which it mixes frit with zinc, boron and molybdenum. Porcelain enamel "skin" sections are hanging on many a U.S. skyscraper's shiny exterior, and frit-coated luminescent walls and lightweight doors are being turned out for houses. Not too far distant, at least in President Marks' dreams, is a house with outside panels of frit as insulation, luminescent inside walls of frit that will do away with conventional lighting, and an interior plentifully stocked with frit-coated appliances.

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