RolleyHoleMan

Been a while since I’ve done an update. Lately I’ve not had much for time so I’ve not been making marbles all that much. I did spend a few hours today making some more cubes for marbles, though none of the material is really all that great. Latley I’ve been working a new job and have been spreading Rolley Hole among my coworkers and have gotten some mild interest. What most people are interested in is the geology and tumbled scraps. Cutting all this material leaves a lot of small quartz scraps I’ll be sharing here when they’re done. Currently I’m up to 68 completed marbles, and I’ve given around 20 away. As another update I’ve made another belt driven rig for marble making that’s extremely portable, though the local hardware store I buy belts from put all their belts in storage so it can’t be completed for a while. Tomorrow I might pull out the machine and see about making some more rough spheres, and hopefully I’ll get back into making spheres of the proper size. My goal before May is to have made 100 marbles, and have a stock of them in time for Rolley Hole. It also seems like a good idea to donate 4 of them to Standing Stone for marble teaching. Anyways here’s some photos.

In 2010, Jabo had their last Ohio Run, or that is what I'm seeing online. Oddly there isn't much information about it, but some slightly older resources say they were making mainly industrial marbles. Marble king is all that remains. Looks like when the time comes they'll be the best bet.

Thank you. I know Temu and aliexpreess are likely not going to be allowed due to state things. I used to order items for the State and there’s a big bunch of mess and approval. I don’t know how we’d go about obtaining marbles for sure, but it would have to be from something the state allows. moonmarble had some wonderful things but the cost is way more than what we charge for marbles. 80-90 marbles for $12 seems a bit steep, but then again I’m approximating using our vague system. We sell marbles using Vienna sausage cans, and one can is $3.00. It might work out actually now that I think about it, but we would need to fill 25 gallon totes full of marbles for the marble hunt.

Hey all, got a question here. I used to work for Standing Stone State Park which is home to the National Rolley Hole marbles championship. You all have probably seen my constant posting about my marbles and Rolley Hole. I no longer work there, but sure am still into Rolley Hole and helping with the tournament. So, during Rolley Hole we sell glass marbles . We have all sorts of sizes and colors, and we also sell printed marbles both commemorative marbles and marbles with various logos (sports, gasoline memorabilia, characters, etc). What I’m looking for is a place that sells marbles in bulk. I’m not talking about a couple hundred, but several thousand. We need to replenish the stock and since these were acquired 20 years ago (with the exception of the donated printed marbles) we are running out. We also do not have any sources for new printed marbles and need a reliable printer/seller. If anyone has any resources or places they’ve bought from, I’d love to have any details. We probably have a couple years worth of marbles left, but once that supply is gone I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Here’s what I’ve been up to. I did realize one of my marbles is out of round. I kept looking at it and more and more it looked like a grape. I procrastinated fixing it by setting up my saw and trying to make some nice cubes. Some I may have made a little small. One thing I’ve learned is that making small cubes is a mistake for me. Some people prefer this though. You work carefully and make an orb quickly you can spin. What the masters don’t speak of is how hard it is to get the marble round without making it a very small size. For some I guess it’s not a stuggle, but for me it is. One of the old Rolley Hole videos has a man talking about how he likes to start with an orb about 1” in size, and then he spins it down to the size he wants. That may be a bit big for me, but I’m inpatient especially in the cold and having back pain from standing or sitting too long. Anyways, I used an old belt drive table saw with a tile saw blade to make these cubes. This saw actually has the nice bar on it to make straight cuts, so less material was wasted. What I got out of my piece was many nice white cubes. This piece was rejected by one of the marble makers, but it’s proven to be my nicest piece so far. I have another pice I’m eying to cut. I think I may work on cutting more and then make a massive amount of spheres to spin. This will keep me busy for a while. I used to wonder why the elderly players and makers were oddly sharp. It’s a physical and thinking art. Both playing and making are pretty heavy thinking things. One park guest asked me what I thought about when making marbles. Often I have a podcast or something going, but the most honest answer is (which I gave them) is I think about Rolley Hole.

Shot open two cans today. Krylon had a smaller clear marble, and the Rusto had a larger green marble.

I was working on repainting and restoring a vintage fan today, so I've got another can to shoot in the morning. It's another Krylon can so I'm expecting a steel ball instead of a marble... Also I don't know how many folks here paint things, but does anyone have experience with Krylon always discontinuing colors? I might not be able to finish my project because of this, and I've had to repaint vintage lanterns in the past due to this. Weird stuff.

Also on the clay marbles, be careful leaving them in anything for cleaning. I’ve heard of some materials dissolving. Clay marbles are also a touchy thing in some areas but the people here will be able to tell you much more. I’m from an area where many places used to sell clay marbles out of massive metal crocks. When I was a kid, these were sold as “authentic civil war marbles”. I have a few of them myself, but they are supposedly fakes. To this day I have people try to sell them to me.

All the marbles in the rig are ones made recently as well. Today I did cut a ton of material down so soon I’ll hopefully get back into making some marbles. There’s some very odd material found here locally that isn’t the best for play, but might make something amazingly cool looking. The scraps from cutting are also getting used in the rock tumbler. My tumbler is having some issues with a worn belt, but boiling the rubber belt in water did get it back into better condition. Everything in the tumbler right now has been in continuous run since December 12th. As for what the goal is with the tumbler, I have no idea. With some larger pieces they can be used for education to show good material. Smaller pieces are just in there to help with the tumbling action. In my other tumbler I have fine polish spinning some small marbles for display. The issue when polishing is all marbles were in different conditions and some had some deep scratches I didn’t account for, so as they’re checked these issues become more noticeable on some. As December goes on, my goal is to make as many marbles as I can before my new job starts up. I have interviews for bigger positions though my chances are slim to none, but all the traveling gives a reason to look for rocks in other areas.

Here’s a fun little display I’ve been using. I’m very bad at woodworking, but last year I made a few of these ringer rigs to have my own and to also give to other parks. Due to the size of the holes, it’s just right for displaying Rolley Hole marbles.

I checked that guys other listings and other items are fairly priced (I’m more of a junk man than a marble man, so I can’t speak on the other expensive marbles). The NPS boundary sign is pretty sweet. I think the seller posted it as satire. It’s like those Facebook marketplace adds making fun of car sales by posting a rotted car and saying “little rust, ran when parked, I know what I’ve got no lawballers”. Or more importantly it’s also like those adds where people post Cheetos shaped like weird things. Seeing the comment about the vintage bike collectors cracked me up. I’ve met some good ones, but most are nutty. Train people are usually the same.

With eBay international returns, usually they just refund you and forget it. I have had to open a few returns for various things, but always because I seemingly got someone else's order. Billy, I have been eyeing various stone marble lots on eBay in the past but had the worry they were glass. Mostly I can never get sellers (US and International) to respond to questions about cracks. Some agate material online looks like some good Rolley Hole marble material, same with some quartz listed online.

Got a cheap blade today and put it on my table saw. This isn’t the best way to go about cutting materials due to the extreme amount of dust and the lack of coolant for the blade. I whittled down a bunch of large chunks and cut some other pieces from small nodules. I was thinking of cutting a larger nodule here but decided against it. There’s a reason many lapidary saws are self-running/ cutting, and that reason is time. It can get boring trying to cut a big piece. Also for those interested in cutting materials, I am doing this the wrong way. I took the cheap quick way to roughly cut some cubes using a table saw for wood and a cheap blade from eBay.

Mostly I figure might as well pull a marble out of something I'm about to toss, plus its best for the guys picking up the trash that the cans have no pressure. It's also fun to show them to people when I'm talking about marbles. People sure are excited to see what the agitator in the can really is. I don't know why it seems to be a common thing around here, but when I was a kid I sure wanted to know what was in there.

This kinda cracked me up a little. I have not seen a marble in a hot water heater myself, but I have used marbles for plumbing repairs. Last winter I was working and living in a State Park that had some pretty lousy housing, with my house being a half-length single wide trailer from the 1970s. It was nice, but neglected. It got to -2 and my heat failed. Despite having the water running, I lost every inch of PVC pipe in the house. So when the thaw came, I had to stop water leaks by putting glass marbles in the end of my copper lines, then tightening them down with whatever the little connector is for attaching the copper to the PVC. Obviously I'm not a plumber... The main water shut off to the house was busted in a way that caused it to leak, so marbles really saved the day until I learned the house had two shut offs.

That sure is odd. I just opened another can using my air rifle, and sure enough it has a ball bearing in it instead. This was Krylon brand appliance epoxy. Anyone else out there have any spray-can marbles?

I've been curious how other people get them open. After giving myself a nasty cut the first time I tried this with a nail, I started shooting the can instead. Someone online was finding cats eye marbles in their cans which I haven't seen yet. At some point I have some cans of paint from the late 1990s that need to be finished off, so it'll be cool to see what they have in them. Most old cans of paint seem to be alright, but there's a few around here which either failed, or the nozzle broke off. Shooting those seems like a bad idea unless the neighbors wouldn't mind seeing a painted yard.

Here's something that may be of interest. I do a bit of spray painting and saw online a year or so ago how the "rattler" inside the can could possibly be a marble. As a kid I was always told they were ball bearings, which sometimes is true. So far I have gotten 6 very small clear marbles, 1 amber marble, and 1 blue marble. Somewhere I should have more of these but they may be mixed in with other marbles. What I have found is certain brands will use different agitators in their cans. Kyrlon I have found with marbles (paint) but ball bearings (primer). Brands like "VHT" very high temperature paint always seems to have ball bearings, same with Krylon high temp grill paint. Rustolium paint always has a marble. Getting the marble out is easy, however I cheat. When I have a can ready to be opened up, I take it out into the yard and I shoot it with an old Crosman 140 .22 air rifle. Sometimes I use it as target practice until I hit it one, other times I shoot it from maybe 10 feet away, and I shoot it through the bottom of the can. Once the can is punctured, I widen the hole and shake the marble out into a dish of kerosene to get the paint off. That's all there is to it. I'll try to knock off a can tomorrow of appliance epoxy.

I managed to find myself another washing machine electric motor for making marbles. I’m not sure how I’ll incorporate it, but what it does do is allow me to reinstall my other motor back into the table saw it came from. I have a cheap saw blade fcoming in the mail for cutting material. Since I don’t have the resources for a wet saw, I’ll have to use this dry and use it for whittling down some large pieces. It’ll take some wear off the Diamond wheel which is good since those wheels are a bit expensive. Another thing to think of is how far I’ll go in regards to a saw. With the extreme cost and no marbles sales on eBay and all that, I probably won’t get to it. Seems to be a bad area for used gear on marketplace as well. latley I’ve not been all that motivated for making marbles so I’ve slowed down a lot. I have maybe 20 unlisted marbles at the moment from when I was really cranking them out. When I get access to the “for sale” section I might just make a large post of a bunch of them. As a state employee I am not allowed to sell marbles at state functions so when I demonstrate, it’s forbidden. Stops corruption and all that which I’ve seen working at some parks. What I’d sure prefer over just selling marbles would be doing it while teaching about some good ole Rolley Hole.

Here’s a process that’s been an experiment. Many of the makers use rock tumblers to polish marbles, though I don’t know if they use a vibratory tumbler or a normal rotary tumbler. These marbles I’m trying to keep nice and round, but I don’t care all that much since they are tiny. The tan marble is a “youth” marble I found, but the others are all marbles made from small pieces that either started small, or were cubes which broke. So far some are polishing up better than others. What I didn’t take into account is that some marbles were starting out at different grits, so some will take longer. Also these are alone in the tumbler. What I’ve done is used a glass mason jar as the barrel, and the marbles all sit next to each other and roll on the bottom of the jar. The gently rub and bump which keeps them turning and not shaping like footballs. End goal is just to see how polished they can get. They would make a cool ringer set, though that’ll take 6 more marbles.

It is always sad to hear news like this, but the work these guys did helped keep the game going along with the craft. I never would have thought when I started working for parks that I would be involved in something like this. It seems like a family out here which I try to stress to people who wonder why Rolley Hole. It's not just a game, but a community out here. During the last few days I counted my marbles the best I could, and have now made over 50. It's hard to keep track sometimes but I think the count is around 55 or more, with more to come.

I did some marble making today, and made two smaller marbles under .75. I made a mistake when measuring these out initially but decided to keep on with it. Today though, I unfortunately have to share the news of the passing of one of the most well-known marble makers and players. Mr. Malcolm Strong passed away at age 88 today. Malcolm was instrumental in keeping the marble game of "Tennessee Square" alive, and had a personal yard dedicated to keeping it going. For those who have attended Rolley Hole and do not know him, he was always seen smoking a pipe, even at the last Rolley Hole. His obituary is to be found here: https://www.uptonfuneralhome.com/obituary/Malcom-Strong

Depending on where you are in Kentucky, it might be fun to look into "Rolley Hole" which is big in Tompkinsville. There's lots of resources online including in this forum.

Georgia is home to "Georgia Rolley Hole". Might be something to look into. Welcome from East Tennessee!

I do a similar thing of leaving marbles, but I was working in a marble themed state park. When people rent out pavilions near the marble yard, I usually tried to leave marbles around for the kids to try. Usually they would start throwing them or something, but with a little guidance they get the idea. You might want to try adding some directions for simple marble games. I find people doing all sorts of things and getting frustrated when the game they created isn't what they were after. Directions for "ringer" or plain school yard type games always helps.