migbar

In 1939 Peltier had 13 marble machines, with four operators dedicated to the running of each one.

It was pretty strong along the coast around San Francisco. We had a good rain in the morning here in Sacramento, and I had great fun down by the corner, splashing around in the water, and trying to clear the gutters and clogged drains. No major flooding downtown, and only a few cars got smashed by falling trees. All in all, a very fine day.

I agree with Boyce that the scissor shears on the Miller machines were for hand gathered marbles. The shears were operated by hitting the punty on the rod above.

I think you'd have to go up into the foothills or drive south about eight hours to catch that kind of action, Griff. It's all flat around here. I suspose if we all went to Galen's, we could try to push his house some... (This is all in good fun, but the truth is Galen is a great friend, even if he isn't a stoner, and you couldn't find a more decent, honest, and fair person to do marble business with. Also, he works and struggles very hard to gather up some semblance of a sense of humor for our amusements. Thank you, Galen.)

I'm way north of southern California, and it is cold and wet up here, maybe down to 40 degrees soon, and we have already had over an inch of rain here, just since June !!

Those youngsters and their wacky CAD work !!!! Hey John...so you have a drafting degree, too, also ?

Yes, Happy Birthday on the Duff-man ! Hey Steve...grab Bill and Griff and Ann, maybe ol' fart Lloyd, and everbody else what wants to, and come on over....we can sit on the porch and celebrate California style, and watch the rain knock the leaves down....bring your own rake.... (make Steph come, too...)

Geez...what a jabbermouse ! also...nuh-uh... (thanks, John !)

and hey....I'm old....I'm a stoner....sometimes I say stupid things... that's just the way it is....

John, I'm glad you got nothin' to sell, because with all due respect, I'm still not buying it. The illustration of the finished marble in the patent drawing is inconvenient in that it does not resemble a feathered slag, but it does appear to be what this set up would produce. I am adamant in my belief that feathered slags were made by casting chunks of white cullet onto the surface of the base glass in the furnace, as opposed to ladles of molten glass. The patent drawing shows a pool of glass below the first side port, that would have been added in a molten state with the charging ladle, and it is stretching out toward the discharge well as a single line of glass surrounded by the base glass. As it piles up on the inclined surface below, it would be a mass of looping lines in all directions, as shown in the drawing. Glass is viscous stuff, and at the fast pace that the gobs are cut, while flowing out the hole to be cut (ka-chink-ka-chink-ka-chink), I seriously doubt, even at high temperature, that nested chevron patterns would be formed continuously on the gob or drip. There would be some pattern movement, surely, but I suggest that the feathering aberrations of the stream would be more likely to occur in a different set up, due to interaction with a plunger, and without the 9" drop into a piling up chamber. I continue to believe this is more likely a possible set up for the wildly patterned so-called "Millers", and the "burnt" marbles. There is plenty of reason to use opaque glass in a process that piles up the glass, even if you can't see inside the marble, because the resulting patterns on the surface of the marble could be extraordinary, if you like folded loops and flames and stuff. I think Sellers Peltier realized that, too. You may scoff and laugh, if you like. Oh...as for the nice reverse twist marbles, as much as I've always wanted to believe that Sellers Peltier made those on purpose, I never found any info to back up that hope, and I have to agree that they just happen sometimes.

Good to see you, John ! michael s. barton barton art glass works

There is plenty of room for disagreement here, and you are free to believe whatever you like, and it makes no difference to me, whatever your opinion is. I'm not pushing my beliefs, just stating my opinion, to the best of my knowledge on the subject.

Dave, the first patent you mention in post #5, is reminiscent of the MFC marble machine, and I don't believe it was ever made. The second patent is for NLR's with six ribbons. The marble that mibstified showed above looks more like the interior threads of acme realors, and I think that is a different process or effect than that of the feathered slags.

I am definitely in the minority, in my belief that the feathered slags were not made by this method. The feathered slag pattern seems to primarily wrap around the surface of the marble, as opposed to an extenuated glass stream folding upon itself and piling up on an inclined conical surface and being re-fused before exiting the hole below, to be cut into a gob, as described in the above patent. A folded and piled up stream of glass would produce ribbons in all directions with many loops, not the parallel ribbons of the feathered slags. The feathered slags could possibly have been made with a similar, but simpler set up, without the final chamber of the above patent. I suspect that the white glass was added as various size small chunks, not molten glass. White glass is much stiffer than any clear or transparent glass, and will melt and flow at a higher temperature. The chunks would sink into the molten base glass slightly, like an iceberg, and as they melt, they would each elongate and stretch into a thin line toward the place of discharge. The resulting stream would be made up of dozens of parallel thin white threads separated by the transparent colored base glass. The pressure of the molten base glass on the sides of the submerged white glass would tend to flatten the lines into thinner vanes. Different colors of glass stay separate, and do not blend together; each chunk of white glass added to the tank will make a separate white line. This patent was filed in 1928, and likely researched in late 1927, when Peltier was making onyx marbles, but they were soon to try marbles with base glass of white or opaque colors. My thought is that the patent in question, if used with a white or colored base glass, instead of clear as mentioned, could have made the "Miller" zebra type two color marbles, or what Peltier called "sunsets" with three colors, or most especially, the burnt Christmas trees and burnt rebels, by adding charges of molten glass side colors through the portholes on the side of the furnace. This method of adding the side colors through one or two side ports of the furnace would explain how the burnt Christmas trees and burnt rebels had one color down the middle of another. some foldy piled up Peltier marble halfs... inside view...

Mikey likey.

Looks Peltier, as sure as black is black.

Peltier used glass that glowed strongly in a LOT of their marbles....you might be surprised...

I found a few of those with yellow, in the bottom row here... for MarbleDawg below....the ribbons are on the surface, not submerged, and they are a dull yellow..two in the 4th row above, have the same yellow along with white, to compare...

I like that red and white translucent base Peltier, by the blue base pearlescent patch, and.....

Ann...my memory is going fast, and I don't remember seeing any translucent purple ones, only transparent and opaque, but I just remembered that the camera I was using when I took pictures of the 1931 monument, made dark blue marbles look purple.

I found smaller purple game marbles, but they weren't as bright as the larger ones in the 1931 monument, shown above.

Oddly, I didn't find any of the large purple marbles that are so prevalent in the monument above, in my small test holes at Peltier twelve years ago.

I collect bricks, too, of course. Here is my opal oxblood guinea brick, and a double ingot burnt oxblood brick.