wediscount2

February 2012

February 2012

january 2012

Bumblebee, Maybe this will Help. Double click to enlarge. Thanks, Ronnie

Polishing is one way to restore an old marble but torching can get all the bubbles out of the sulphide without losing so much glass. Each sulphide marble owner makes the decision to leave it alone, get it polished or get it torched.

Here are two torch repairs I did for a friend.

You must also realize that A large percentage of marble collectors (and most long time collectors) look down on polished marbles.

"You Stated"-- You must also realize that a large percentage of marble collectors (and most long time collectors) look down on polished marbles. "End Of Statement" I take it that it means real advanced marble collectors don't want nothing to do with polished marbles. Thats not what the worlds most advanced collector team thought when they brought their 'Pair of doves kissing sulphide"in blue glass to my home and had me make a few tiny adjustments to it. The man had tears of joy in his eyes when I handed him back his marble that he had just bought at auction for $5000.00 less than 3 hours before. That was 20 to 25 years ago. Now back to your statement. Would that statement above have any bearing as to why you have replied to Scoops article on hand polishing 3 times? What and how do you put the finish polish to the marble? What grit # And you gave up the grapes on where to get the pads for the diamond polishers (at toolocity) This means you had to do a little searching. Inquisitive??? or are you one of those closet polishers! Now as far as this little Grime Shine or AKA Scrubber deal goes, You, Me, or anyone else simply cannot tell if a marble that has been through the process "ONE" time has ever been messed with. If the marble was put through a second time you would not be able to tell with the human eye and a loupe. If you had an expensive 4 digits to the right of the decimal point caliper you may be able to detect a difference of 1 ten-thousand's of an inch. I know these things because it was my intent from the start to build a machine that did not alter the original size. Now you want to see a marble that has been messed with, check this one out. I know the photo is not super hi-res (taken with a 1 megapixel camera) I did it about 20 years ago when I was employed at a firm that designed and manufactured optical and laser lenses and I still have the marble. Hope your future marble endeavors treat you kind. Ronnie

DOUBLE CLICK THE THUMBNAIL TO ENLARGE

You must also realize that A large percentage of marble collectors (and most long time collectors) look down on polished marbles.

Hi Ronnie, I apologize fo not responding,, as a member here i should be more forth coming of what little i know,,, im not sure where to begin,, if there was one tag on this forum site i wished there was a "Like" button so everyone can see your post arnt going unseen at the very least.. you have some great akros ,,, bj

Yes it's me again, thought I would bother you one last time. (other than one last post that's important, should be in a few days).

I do apologize for my loss of memory. Had I not experienced this memory problem I could have saved a weeks time and the needless repair of some junk marbles. I do not detest the trial but rather consider it a true blessing from GOD as there was more correction needed in my life. Feeling a little melancholy from not receiving positive feedback from my recent posts, I went into a deep thought process that resulted in being able to solve a marble restoration problem that had burdened me for almost 20 years. Well enough of that lets get onto the matter at hand. I forgot all about some posts I had done on this board over 4 yearsago. Lucky for me I found some notes about these old posts and that is why I am posting this time. At this site (Marble Connection) and from the home page there is a list of selectable topics and the 8th one down from the top is the Restoration Q&A topic. Click on it and it will bring up the first page. Down towards the bottom of the page are three posts from wediscount. One of those (looking to polish a few marbles) is messed up as those are not my marbles or my posting . The other 2 are my posts and my pictures, Looking to shine some marbles and Grime Shine. If you will go there and read the content and view the photos it may help and be of an interest to you. The marbles photoed was my first batch I received from a member at Lou's Marble Connection. Thanks, Ronnie...

Please Remember.....Never allow yourself to become so exalted that when your test does come, that you fail because of your pride.

IF NEED BE DOUBLE CLICK THE THUMBNAIL TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE

First I need to give my rereference. I have been a member here at the marble connection for 5 or 6 years. Alan Z on this board canvouch for me. I have beeen a member at ebay for 12 years or more. My seller and user name is wediscount. I have a positive feedbackof over 4600 and it's unblemished.

Now to the marble. This junk marble had a chip about 15 thousands of an inch deep. The marble next to it had about the same depth of damage. Repairing this marble is a little different than the marble I posted yesterday. I start with a 3-M brand 320 crankproduction paper. It comes in a roll about 250 foot long and a half inch wide. I cut it in about 7 inch strips and I also cut some pieces in half and some about three eights wide. I sandwich the marble in a vise between 2 rubber faucet washers. leaving a little bit stick up above the jaws of the vise. Experience tells me that from the center of the chip I will be going about 5 eights of an inch all the wayaround the perimeter. You will be cutting a little more at the chip center but you also got to start taking off stock at the edge of the chip perimeter and work your way down the 5 eights outer limit. Now look at the depth of the scratches that the 320 left on the marble. Your objective now is to take the 400 and make those 320 scratches disappear. Once that is done try to get some 490 to 520 grit paper and again looking at the artifacts of the 400 paper make them disappear. Then take the 600 and make the 500 artifacts disappear. It's now ready for the buff. Would recommend you practice on a shallow small chip until you feel comfortable with the process. It took me aboutan a hour and a half start to finish but the most important thing is I maintained the curve and have no flat spots. Remember you have to go through a certain progression of grits to get the marbles surface ready to take a buff. Thanks for the read, Ronnie

DOUBLE CLICK THE PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT.

SCRUBBER wasn't good enough for you Republicans, try this

Since i got no response to my original posting, i made improvements. Along with the $2 scrub there i now a $5 scrub. (in lots of 5 or more). This $5.00 treatment will remove light to medium scratches, small in size and depth chips, small on the surface sparkles. and pinpricks. This process only removes about 2 to 6 thousands of an inch in glass stock. (the average thickness of a humain hair about 3 thousands of an inch). Most will have no idea that the marble had been worked on. Let me know, Ronnie

I had a small marble, not worth anything, but it had a closely cropped cluster of damage. I decided to try and repair it by hand just to see if it could be done without leaving a flat spot. I allowed myself one hour to do the project. I took some 350 sandpaper and started sanding, working the paper all around the area. It took less than 15 minutes to take out about 80 percent of the damage but I had to stop there as a remaining sliver of a sparkle was at the very top surface of the glass. If I had kept going with the 350 it would have opened up a seam and the buffing agent would have gotten in underneath and ruined the whole project. And if i had kept going and opened up a seam, i would have had to pop the remaining sparkle out which would have left a crater. I then started with the 600 sandpaper and it took about 35 minutes to get it ready for the final buff. It took about 70 minutes total start to finish time, and I had no flat spot.

DOUBLE CLICK THE THUMBNAIL TO ENLARGE

DOUBLE LEFT CLICK THE THUMBNAILS TO ENLARGE THE PHOTOS. I built a new machine that scrubs and buffs marbles. It Will handle sizes up to and including seven eights of an inch. The cost is two dollars per marble in "minimum" lots of 12 marbles (plus return shipping and desired insurance). This scrubbing does not remove nicks, chips, bruises, moderate scratches or glass stock. Also if the marble has a deep valley or crease the machine will not take care of that issue. It does remove haze, crud, oxidation, teeny tiny hairline scratches, film and cloudiness and it leaves a real nice non greasy buff on the marbles surface. I am not responsible if I break one of your marbles, to date I have yet to break one, I know I said it's a new machine but I have done hundreds of marbles in the past and know a little bit about this stuff. At present turn around time is about a week. If interested you can contact me by email using this [email protected] Thanks for the read and please excuse any spelling mistakes. Ronnie

Was asked to post a photo of these double strike marbles. Ronnie

I have thousands of vintage machinemade marbles in my collection. There is not one that I would consider a keeper with an orange peel texture. That is just what I like. I except the fact there are vintage marbles with orange peeled texture and some people like them and some hold them dear. That is fine. I do heartily disagree with a blanket statement that most vintage marbles have a degree of orangepeel to the naked Eye. That is simply not true. Again I say look at any pic of Alans auctioned marbles or any pic of BTs you will not find any Orange peel. And I am not talking about great magnification as there is no such thing as a perfectly smooth surface. And under magnification you will find more surface irregularity on Peltier marbles than the other manufacturers. That is it. Not trying to make fun of anyone or what they collect. I just don't like statements made as fact when they aren't. It is also fact that other than Vacor marbles I have seen many many more orange peeled marbles from dumpings than I have ever seen in packaging or none dug groups. As a percentage. And from the postings and emails I have no problem stating that most collecters consider orange peeling not as desireable as the same marble smooth. And most consider it a defect such as micro folds and bubblepops. A liked defect by some but still a defect IMHO. Peace,Galen thinks that may be his longest post ever(LOL)

Exactly!!......none of my older killer marbles have any orange peel....don't we usually list that as a defect when we are selling a marble? However, that said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.....maybe he likes oranges............pax Jon

Now I said a "lightly pronounced" orange peel surface is desirable on a marble, just as I said that older killer marbles have a orange peel surface. Now I myself do not prefer a "heavy" orange peel surface. It's been over 15 years since I collected marbles and frankly I do not even know the newer marbles by name at all. I do no the older machine mades, and I do no what the surface of glass looks like.

What does it mean? Newer? Older? Lesser? Faker? -Steph