richsantaclaus

As you know by now, I make marbles. I also LOVE any kind of glass that I can get my hands on. So, I obtained several JABO run marbles (mainly from the Fenton company (where that glass was used on the TV show Dirty Jobs") and even though they were beautiful, I couldn't contain myself - I HAD to alter them. Below you'll see 9 different combinations of Jabo marbles that I remelted and altered at my torch. I have shot the marble with 4 views of the same marble. So, let me know what you think about my alterations.... Thanks Rich Marble #1

Under the torch, it never shatters since it is molten and in liquid form state of matter. It cracks after cooling (I have my kiln set at a very slow cooling rate (it takes 10 1/2 hours to get from 970 degrees F to 400 degrees F). The thing is, sometimes it shows cracks immediately and sometimes it takes a few weeks!

Well Pen, if ever you vacation near so calif, just let me know so we can meet up!

I have had a few issues with Jabo glass not cooperating with me too. I had them cut in half, separating the "bad" parts from the "good" parts and melted the good parts together to make an entirely new marble! I took the "bad" halves and hand-pulled the problem part (where it cracked) and tossed it away and used the remaining glass to make new combined marbles - so far, no troubles! I have melted together different Jabo marbles to make bigger ones - it's kinda fun! Anyone interested in seeing them?

In Fenton Glass - they range from COE 88 to 97 and the extremes are not compatible at all. 3 marbles cracked on me! In Moretti soft glass, the COE ranges from 102 to 106 and usually has no problems. Sometimes, the transparents buried deeply in encased glass cause problems. In hard glass (Boro) green glass hates to be encased and usually always causes problems. I invite anyone to come over and torch with me so i cna share the craft!

I am keeping it in a padded cigar box just in case it exploded. I had a hollow bead I made (1 1/4") shatter into thousands of little shards on my workbench over night - what a mess!

Hi everyone. I was torching and thought I'd make a marble that contained too different COE's (coefficient of expansion). When a marble is made, if there is too much of a difference of COE in the glass, incompatibility issues will surely arise and cause chips, cracks and breaks in the marble. The trouble is, one can't know when this exact event will happen. Even though I gave this marble the correct kiln time, it still had problems. I made the spread of the COE numbers way apart to insure a good example of what happens. I chose borosilicate glass (COE 33), the kind of glass you use in cooking called "hard" glass and included Moretti soft glass (COE 104). These COE numbers are too apart to ever make a marble that won't have problems as my example for you to see visually. Not to get too scientific here, COE refers to the vibrating molecules in the glass itself. The "shaking" back and forth at the atomic level. Different types of glass and different colors of the same glass have different COE's. This fact presents a MAJOR problem when old vintage marbles are repaired using my torch as I don't know the original values of the COE of the old glass. To overcome this problem, I don't repair all marbles that people give me to repair. Anyway, here are 2 pictures of the same marble. I hope I have helped in a small way to show you guys incompatibility issues and COE's.

That restoration is nice. I also restore marbles but I don't use the grinding technique. I use my torch to make the repair. I feel the grinding takes too much glass from the original marble but that's just my opinion. In these two pictures of the same repaired marble, I was asked to leave the original pontil marks at both ends. I am sorry, I forgot to take the before repair picture, but, you can see how cloudy the marble used to be if you look close at the pontils. I am wondering if one uses the grinding technique, do the pontils change too and get removed?

Felicia, at 62, my bender any eyes don't work as good as they did back then...lol!!!!!

I sure had fun too. It's all about the fun and I never made the others feel bad after I won their stuff either.

Anybody want to come over and play? Here is my collection in a lamp that I have from my 6th grade time when I was the marble champ at my school. Let me see...... 62-10 = 52 years ago! I had these in tin cans (remember them) for years before i was old enough to have the money to buy the lamp. It was full of sea shells before I altered it when I was 25 and made it into my marble lamp. I am guessing it weighs around 50 pounds and is solidly full of all the winnings from back then. I have the principal's shooter + his marbles, other teacher's marbles and especially Sue's shooter and her marbles as she was my closest competitor! Ahhhh, the good old days!

Hello everyone!!!!! I am happy to announce the 2011 Orange County Marble Show in Southern California that will be on the third Saturday in March (March 19th, 2011). I am just back from meeting with the hotel (same location as the 2010 marble Show) and set the date so it doesn't conflict with other marble shows (I hope). I'll post the particular information about the show and how to rent a table or attend the show in later posts. I just HAD to let you all know as soon as I could! I hope to see you there as the last show was such a blast! Rich

I have only heard of how the cane marbles were made by the German marble makers before. I slept on it and thought (dreamed) I'd like to try a small cane and make a few small marbles from the cane I made. This is soft glass (Moretti form Italy). As you can see, the last one on the right was the end of the cane. Like them?

Hi everyone. I've been busy at my torch. Mr. Bob Jackson, a marble collector friend of mine, gave me a glass cigar tube for my some of my marbles. So, I went out to my workroom and made a holder for the glass tube. Like it?

When I do a marble repair, I can tell since I do not leave any punty (pontil) marks and make it as smooth as the glass will allow. Currently, I have done about 100 repairs and I think I am getting good at it - but it does all totally depend on the glass and how IT behaves!

Question: When I encase a copper penny, for example, am I making a sulphide? I've been doing that for at least 3 years and before my marble show, I never even heard of a sulphide before! Also, I have never seen that movie so I am missing your point. (Not had TV for 30 years either!)

I can answer "whY?" one would like to make a sulphide - it's a total creative challenge! I have tried to make 3 of them with NO success!!!!! I want to make a sulphide where NO bubbles at all are in the clear but have had nothing but headaches from the 3 I have tried. The 1st one has a "bubble-wrap" look where the little kitten with a ball of string seems to be covered with the bubble-wrap! The 2nd one, I changed the COE of the glass and when I put in into my kiln to anneal, it looked perfect BUT the next day, it looked as if rolled down Mount Everest and cracks were all throughout the clear. It is SO bad, you can't tell the eagle figurine is inside! The 3rd one is again totally wrapted in a bubble-wrap look even though I covered the little bear figurine using a different encasing method and a slower cool-down ramping in my kiln! Right now I am at a loss as how to make a sulphide marble! IF I ever "get it to work" for me and IF I plan on selling it - I will SCREAM to the world that it is a contemporary made sulphide so no one would ever accuse me of not telling the truth about it!!!!!

I didn't really believe it when I was working on it either - I was SO happy with it the next day when I took it out of the kiln!

Believe it or not, the milk glass look came from CLEAR GLASS!!!!! I have no idea what happened under the heat of my torch but it took 2 hours and 15 minutes to make this marble! I did email the cullet company I bought the glass from, no reply as of yet.

Here is one that worked with just applying surface stringer coloring. It's 2 1/4" in diameter! My wife saw it and immediately took it for her own!

It did hurt as I spent about 2 hours making these 3 marbles!

I ordered about 40 pounds of Fenton Glass cullet and I am using it to experiment on the types of colors that will not crack like these. So far, I've made about 2 dozen marbles with no problems until these 3 attempts. I hope people learn like me from this work. Thanks

I wanted to show you guys what happens with Fenton glass when you take the COE's that are too far apart and try to make a marble with the glass. Fenton Glass has 88 through 97 COE as verified by the "scientists" that I have been in contact with that work there. To learn more about COE, go here... http://www.warmglass.com/Glass_compatibility.htm Anyway, here is what happened when I tried different colors of the Fenton Glass to make these 3 marbles..... (I hope the Jabo people did a bit of homework before they used Fenton Glass to make their machine marbles!)

her are the last 2 pictures

I wanted to share my latest work using the same cullet that the Jabo group used in their run for the TV show, Dirty Jobs. The pictures below show the cullet with the finished marble I made. Like the results?