help with marble please
 

Hi i am rather new to glassblowing and mostly work on marbe\les because thats were my love is. i am looking for help please. I have a friend whos son is terminal and asked me if he could make some marbles with me and after clearing it with the doctor said it was ok.

my problem is i really want to help him make anything he wants because he is such a special kid. he stumped me and one marble he wants to make is an o;dfashioned cats tail. I have looked everywere i know of and have no idea how that one is done. so if anyone can help please do.

thanks

ken

This is the style of marble that's sometimes referred to as a cat's tail

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2JdnqvbsXA...45_marbles.jpg

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/be...ass-marble.jpg

i know but i have no clue on how to do one any ideas

an easy way to do them is to implode a pattern like this ...

thank you so much hor sharinf your knowledge it will make hime so happy

no worries, I should probably clarify a couple of quick details, I was in a hurry this morning.

make the disc as thin as possible
draw the lines from the edge of the disc to the center, but not over the edge and don't draw them from the center to the edge
implode in one go, some implosion techniques require multiple flattenings of the disc as the design is worked in, but this one requires that once you've started imploding, there should be no further flattenings in the process.
once imploded and rounded into a marble shape, switch the punty to the opposite side of the marble
heat the face of the marble very hot and plunge some narrow tweezers right into the center of the marble, grab and pull. This will pull the colour through from the inside of the marble to the surface.
heat it all in, round it out and there it is.
If you want a twist in it, just heat the equator of the marble and twist.
it's not the original way of making this style of marble, of course, but it's easier and more practical for your purposes than pulling thick cane and sectioning it off.

How were they originally made? 3 color cane with clear in between each? I went looking last night when it occurred to me I had no idea.

not sure how they set the machines up for the mechanised process, but for handmade ones in the hotshop the colour is laid on in a bladed arrangement (2 to 5 blades, but commonly 3 or 4 at most), usually around a clear core, somewhat like my crappy drawing (except I didn't allow for a clear core). Clear is laid between the blades and everything is fused together. Then more clear is gathered over the top and then they're pulled into a thick cane, the diameter depends on the size of the finished marble. If there's a twist, it gets introduced at that point. Then a section, which roughly corresponds to the diameter in length is jacked down, shaped, jacked off and properly rounded out in a block (a block is like a water soaked, wooden (usually cherry or some fruit wood for the density marble mold).

Thanks! That would explain the pinch on either end of the colored bits.

There used to be a vid around that showed how 'mechanized' marbles were made. Basically a large crucible is suspended over a chopping plate. The chopping plate is motorized and based on the pot temp its speed is regulated to cut off just the right amount of glass comming from the hole in the bottom of the pot. These slugs then fall into a set of two inclined rollers that are turning. As the slug rolls down between the two rollers it gets gradually rounder and rounder. It then falls into a container and is later checked for roundness etc.

I suspect that the melt is set up such that the colored 'ribbons' are in the center of the melt and flow out in the required pattern, much the way rod pulls are done.

PJH

Thanks for sharing all this, guys. It is VERY much appreciated that you take the time.

-BEP

Is this what you mean cheng076 ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-k_IQQGk3A

OOOOOO! AAAHHHH! Thanks for the wonderful link Marcel! Gawd, I love glass!!! :)

Yes, that's one of the vids I was thinking about.

There's a Dirty Jobs episode where Mike visits a marble factory as well.

There's a Fenton visit too, but that's another topic :)