Shamrock Marbles

Here's a question: When MFC made oxblood, did they mix the ingredients, cook, then gather directly? Or When MFC made oxblood, did they mix the ingredients, cook, ladle and dump glass to cool. Only to heat up Oxblood cullet again in a monkey pot from which they gathered? For Akro, did they just add Oxblood Cullet to their color tanks? Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: Here are some better close up photos of a hot gob of glass ran on rough (sand blasted) rollers. Some round impressions, some elongated impressions, no scratches in the valleys. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mike, Here is the Peltier PeeWee marble machine languishing somewhere. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: Sorry but I doubt very much Vacor allows any of their rollers to get rusty and pitted, JMHO Daddy always told me, "A man's entitled to his opinion, even no matter how wrong it is." Maybe you and I should go together and see? Hopefully, one of us will learn something. Welcome back. and not so sure any of the largest types are made with chips. I now firmly believe you don't really read anything. Post #69 shows a yellow 1-5/8" diameter marble. That surface is embedded with glass frit. I toured a glass factory in W.V. many years ago. They took their still hot hand blown pieces and plunged them into water . It was really neat. The results were neat too. And how does this move the discussion forward? I've seen Ro Purser cool a murrine gather in a bucket of water. I can say his results were pretty neat, but it has no correlation to the Vacor squiggles. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mon, Sorry for making you repeat yourself and I understand........pretty cool video and not what I expected! I don't have a surface gage but wonder how much surface deviation in some of the euro's or jolly's? No problem. I hope you didn't take me wrong. I was citing my passages to help others in reference to your question. I doubt anyone will read this thread in its entirety. Funny you mention measuring the surface. Want to go halvsies? http://www.schmitteurope.com/Surface-Roughness-Measurement/lasercheck-automated.html I'm sure glad you not investigating who stoled two bars of turkish taffy from the Kipton general store in 1967.........ok, it was me! lol If you need more... http://www.groovycandies.com/vanilla-bonomo-turkish-taffy-24-bars?zmam=61863401&zmas=1&zmac=1&zmap=59033&gclid=CL-psYXJpckCFQgKaQodnIkAxw Mon, thanks for your patience. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: I should have said I have seen orange peel texture on glass that the side showing the orange peel was not touching anything, but in my time away I will do some research as I kind of remember oil or steam possibly having something to do with it. IT seems hitting that 60 mark messed up a lot of synapses Thanks for clarifying. Let me try to clarify some things myself. Glass cools and can develop waviness (or some would call chill marks). This is most evident on irregular shaped items. Take a gob of glass and drop it onto a steel marver. Let it sit until it cools enough to handle and place in an annealer. When you pull out the cooled mass, the top will be domed, the edges rounded, but the bottom will have concentric rings/waves/chill marks. The transfer of heat on the bottom is greater to the cool marver (conduction) than the top in contact with the surrounding air (convection). Heat loss through radiation is negligible. Take a gob of glass on the end of a punty. Flatten four sides on the marver and the end opposite the punty. You will notice again a waviness form on the surface. The corners will cool quickest (smallest cross-sectional distance). Followed by the edges and then the center. Notice the pattern that forms on the panel surfaces? Concentric circles or ovals. But what makes a marble very special is that it is what it is -- a sphere. The distance from the center to any surface is equal. (All radii are equal.) The distance from any point on the surface back to itself is equal. (All circumferences are equal.) It is the only shape that gives the greatest volume with the smallest surface area. (Perfection.) Because of this physical trait, the marble can withstand quite a bit of cooling before failure. Not something you can get away with on a glass goblet where the cross section of the glass changes drastically from the lip, through the body, the stem and then to the foot. Think how long the first marble sits in a bottom of a collection bucket before that bucket is placed in the lehr for annealing? Marbles are pretty darn durable. So, as a marble cools on the surface as it is being "spun", it contracts uniformly. The surface tension of the glass surface increases and places the molten core under pressure. There is a point where the surface cools and the hot interior no longer has enough energy to reheat the surface. It is this point when one can safely place in an annealer. (Learned the hard way.) If you look at marble halves, many of them have a small bubble where the stresses propagated to the surface. (Cracked from the inside out.) Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Steph: Yes, food for thought. Have you been checking my math? Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

To All: I consider the severity and orange peel pattern on the Vacor to be unique. Definitely something you don't see on vintage machine made marbles (the closest that approaches to this are certain samples of AKRO Jolly Rogers). The Vacor orange peel is easily seen on their Jumbo marbles (1-3/8"), but also on some of their smaller marbles (1" included), but not as severe. On Friday afternoon, I went browsing at Moon Marble. As I looked through similar sized bins, I noticed that the transparent marbles were smoother (no orange peel) than certain opaque marbles (some opaque marbles were smooth). In other words, not all Vacors exhibit this orange peel. Why some and not others? When I got to the end of the row, I found something that struck me. I found a bin full of beautiful Vacor Snow Leopards. Why did it hit me? When you sprinkle cold shards of glass into the marble machine, those little bits-o-glass tear up the auger surface. Run enough of this and you'll impact the surface of the augers like the surface of the moon. This result is similar to media blasting the surface. (Different media and application settings will give different surface textures.) Some of those chunks are 3/32" and just sharp edges. So, after you are done with a run of Snow Leopards and your augers are beat, what do you run next? Transparent red? No way! They would look like heck. Any transparent would. Run an opaque color until the tooling smooth's out, then transition into something that won't highlight the surface imperfections. You might want to iridize or acid etch the surfaces to soften or mask the rough surface. Vacor runs frit on most of their size ranges. I wouldn't think that Vacor would have dedicated frit machines, because the wear and tear would too much on a single machine. It sure would be interesting to know. Back in the Summer of 2006, I ran some frit through the large tooling of my first machine (at Sauder Village). A clear gob was gathered and dropped into the rollers. Small, multi-colored frit was dropped into the machine. The grinding and chattering of the machine was most evident. Tore the heck out of the surface to the point I had to sand it smooth. Not on my list to do anytime soon. (This was my attempt at making a Vitro "confetti" marble.) I need to find my samples of those. So, back to my theory... The Vacor orange peel is from rough augers. Larger marbles shift more, thus creating elongated valleys. The augers are rough because they have been media blasted sprinkled and ground with large, sharp, hard glass frit. Just some food for thought. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

To All: On Friday, I had the chance to visit Moon Marble. I did this for two reasons. 1) Locate samples of Shamrock Marbles made on a newly sandblasted forming surface and left there for their archives. 2) Look at a huge assortment of Vacor marbles. After a short search, I came across three clear samples that matched up with my "Guinea" Lemon. Here they are: Notice: 1) The severe orange peel (or lemon peel). 2) The chevron (ram's head) twist. 3) The "copper" tint to the marble in the upper right. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

These? https://www.moonmarble.com/p-386-empty-collector-case.aspx Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

To All: Here are some videos showing surface tension of water in zero g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTqLQO3L4Ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQ7qGilqZE Notice how a small water droplet reacts when separated from the larger mass. It almost instantaneously forms into a sphere, while the large mass flails about. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mon, But......I would imagine the PeeWee machine(s) sat just as much, if not more, than a 3/4" plus machine(s). Can't recall any of my PeeWee's with OP. Without knowing jack sh*t, I always thought OP was do to poor glass cause it seems to be more prevalent in foreign marbles with the exception of the jolly roger's you had pointed out. Yes, agreed. PeeWee machines would sit as much. Here is the Peltier PeeWee Machine sitting idle. Look at the rust on the augers. She has seen better days. Wonder what marbles would look like coming off her now. Again, back in Post #15 I stated: However, the weight of a large marble does force the glass against the roller surface more than a smaller volume/weight gob. Larger marble=heavier weight=deeper impression. Smaller marble=lighter weight=lighter impression. A PeeWee (0.499" diameter) marble is 1/8th (0.125x) the mass of a 1.000" diameter marble. [Another way to look at it is: A 1" marble weighs 8-times more than a PeeWee marble.] Hence, the surface of a PeeWee will see 1/8th the force from gravity as it is pushed against the rollers. Marble mass increases as a cube of the diameter (Mass = Density * Volume = Density * ((3.14159/6)*(Diameter^3)). Double the diameter of a marble and it's volume, mass, thermal energy is 8x greater (2^3=8). But there is are other factors helping the PeeWee: 1) It's smaller size is impacted more from surface tension. The surface tension is trying to pull the mass into a sphere. Like a small bead of water on a leaf. The smaller, the rounder. Increase the mass of the droplet and it flattens. 2) The smaller mass of the PeeWee has less thermal mass and cools much quicker (again 1/8th as much as a 1"). There is a lesser chance of surface shifting. Man, these suckers set quickly! 3) It's surface is smaller and your old eyes can't see those imperfections as easily! Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Winnie: There are Euro sparklers with the same orange peel as showed in page #54 You bring up an interesting point. Clear or transparent glass really highlights the rough surface. The light reflects and diffracts. Light coming through the other side of the marble helps seeing the surface distortion. On an opaque marble, you need to get the right angle for the reflection to see orange peel. The transparent versus opaque glass is something I'll bring up in my Vacor discussion. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mon: I have had many 1" plus european sparklers and I can't remember seeing any without a certain level orange peel. Also, I have had many of the smaller 5/8" plus without a trace of OP. If it was a temperature thing of rollers vs glass, why would it be so consistent? Were the 1" er's made in short runs.....short enough that the rollers never made it to a temp to alleviate OP? If it's a roller condition issue....did most companies rework them after sitting idle? Why is the it the larger marblest have OP more often? I tried to lay out some reasoning in my response to Bumblbee back in Post #15. Here is an excerpt: Just a guess but probably 90% of all marbles run are 5/8" with the remaining 10% of smaller and larger marbles (of which shooter 3/4" are included). Large marbles (say over 3/4") are infrequently run, because they are expensive to produce and the demand wasn't there. This meant that marble rounding machines for large spheres where mostly idle throughout the year. Here are photos of idle machines: Unknown location and sizes. Peltier Pee-Wee Machine in unknown location. (Mike, thanks for your photo in the PeeWee thread.) Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

To All: Here is a link to a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOiTwnadb5A I think this machine was resurrected and produced marbles this year. Some of these marbles are on eBay, but I'm not sure which auction listings. Any factual information would be helpful. Would like to see the auger surface now and a close-up of the marble surfaces. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: Neat looks just like the Alox orange peel and nothing like the Vacor IMO Yes, Galen. I would agree with your opinion. The orange peel that you see on the Wheaton Village "marble" is more like that on the ALOX run. If you read my posts, the last sentence of Post #48: You did open my eyes to the Vacor orange peel as a variant of orange peel. I will get to the Vacor variant, but first the ALOX... First, I want to apologize to whoever I downloaded these pictures from. If I were to guess, they may be Ron Shepard's. Here is a "raw" ALOX machine: Rusted and pitted augers. Here is a "close-up" of the ALOX machine in action: Here are some "marbles" made on the ALOX machine: Notice the orange peel surfaces? Now looking at the surface differences between the first two photos, it appears that the augers were cleaned up. Looking at the lack of rust even at the shaft, I speculate that the augers were media blasted. Maybe someone can comment on "if" or "how" the augers were cleaned before testing? Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mike, Great photos!! I have many questions, but will refrain. Thank you, again!! To All: No one posted a photo of a Wheaton marble. So, I went looking in my boxes-o-stuff. Here is a "marble wanna-be" with orange peel: This rough surface ("orange peel") is simply from a soft, plastic glass gob touching the rough surface of the rollers. Not from: the glass is too cold, the glass is too hot, the rollers are too cold, the rollers are too hot, the glass shrunk or the glass was blah, blah, blah.... It was run across these rollers. True, the rollers where "cleaned up" quite a bit, but in the end, the surface was still pock-marked and rough. My understanding is that Scott put quite a bit of elbow grease and sweat into making that lady presentable. Ideally, one would have to re-machine the surface down to remove the surface defects. Very expensive. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mike, That is awesome! Thank you for digging in and sharing this information! Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: I understand the thinking that the hot rollers could keep the surface of the marble hot long enough to allow the cooling shrinking glass on the interior to start pulling at the glass on the surface. Good theory. No. Bad theory. Take a day-trip and run this down to the engineering department at Stanford. Be prepared for strange looks of derision or just laughing. Temp(Auger) < Temp(Marble Surface) < Temp(Marble Core) I am not sure anything I can say or show is going to sway John into believing Orange peel can form on marbles made on smooth rollers. I don't think you've really said anything congruent or substantial. One of your first comments was: A cooling piece of glass can develope orange peel surface without ever touching rollers That statement is true and false. A further explanation is required. (<<Notice I said "true".) As far as showing anything, you've supplied some nice photos. Even photos that had nothing to do with the original question. Thank you. It's easy to say, "The apple falls from the tree", but can you explain why? Will you even try? ...Orange peel can form on marbles made on smooth rollers Let me see your logic based on your previous statements: Vacor makes millions of marbles. Millions of marbles running across augers makes them smooth. Therefore, all Vacor augers are smooth. Vacor makes marbles with orange peel. Vacor marble machines have smooth augers. Therefore, marbles with orange peel come from smooth augers. Disregard the above postulate, because... A cooling piece of glass can develop orange peel surface without ever touching rollers Maybe someone else can? I will leave the rest of this discussion to others. I like this argument technique. It implies that you hold the high ground of truth and facts, while you have exhausted yourself trying to raise me to your position. I can just see you throw your arms in the air as a futile surrender. I doubt you'll leave this discussion to others. You checked out once before (on post #25), but only to return. It's in your nature. Just look at the blue glass, that is not from anything pushing in on the glass!!!!! Love the extra exclamation marks. It is a great way to socially emphasize your frustration. Yes, I have looked at the blue glass in the photos posted in #18 and #28. I even have actual Vacor samples in my possession. Yes, there are pushing forces. Gravity pushes the molten gob into the face of the augers. The rotational drive of the downward roller pushes the gob toward and into the upward roller. The curvature of the groove, auger offset and auger pitch create horizontal forces and push the gob sideways. While you're at Stanford talking to the professor about that heat transfer theory, tell him your thoughts that there is nothing pushing on the marble surface. I know paint forms orange peel with out touching any thing Using paint is a bad analogy. Paint orange peel can occur from improper target preparation, droplet size, wrong angle of spray, etc. When paint dries, the carrier (water or a voc) evaporates. When marbles are made, the shape is formed and heat is lost. Sorry, marble orange peel has zero to do with paint orange peel. and I have seen glass besides marbles orange peel without touching anything Where you in outer space or a zero g environment? How does a chunk of glass cool without touching anything? Was a hot gob of glass dropped from atop the Empire State building and the cool sphere caught at the bottom? [This is how Dippin' Dots are created. Drops of ice cream are dropped through a cryogenic tower. Frozen balls at the bottom.] so I don't see why marbles can not orange peel with out bumps on rollers creating the orange peel. I know you don't see. That's okay. Your whole argument has been that Vacor orange peel is coming from smooth rollers, so something else is causing the orange peel. And that "something" else must be how the marble is cooling. You did open my eyes to the Vacor orange peel as a variant of orange peel. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

To All: Let's start all over. Reset. Imagine if Steph asked, "Why is my tire flat?" Possible response could be: "There is no air in it." "It's only flat on the bottom half!" "You have a nail." "It's a Firestone." "It's December." They are simple responses. I give Steph credit in trying to ask technical questions. She's smart enough (along with the readers of this forum) to pull it all in and digest the info. I think it is a dis-service to give short answers to her (and readers). So, let's go back and revisit her original question(s): What Causes Orange Peel? Is it glass temperature and cooling rates? Is it something more complicated like the chemistry of the glass involved? Here is my direct response: What Causes Orange Peel? Since this is a marble chat board, I'm assuming you're referring to orange peel on spherical glass marbles as opposed to bottles, plate glass, car paint, etc. Is it glass temperature and cooling rates? Yes, kind-of, but let me develop this a bit more below. Is it something more complicated like the chemistry of the glass involved? I'm sure some chemical imbalance could be at play, but most glass formulae are well established. I wouldn't rule this out, but I would marginalize it to the less than 1% category. My response to her second question clearly states that I agree "glass temperature" plays a roll. However, my "kind-of" comment is really meant to say that there is more at play than just "glass temperature" alone. Now, just proceeding my response to Steph was: To All: I think the definition of "orange peel" may vary from individual to individual (myself included). Clarifying this may help in the discussion. Photo samples would help. Galen was the first and only one to offer a photo example. His picture was a sample of extreme orange peel on a large Vacor marble (actual diameter not shared). This type of orange peel is not normally found on vintage marbles. Again, please show me a 1-1/4" MFC, or 1" Peltier, Vitro Parrot or Alley with this extreme orange peel. (The closest I've seen is a surface on an AKRO Jolly Roger.) I will follow up on additional posts. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Mike: Can you explain why a longer cooling time would yield the Vacor orange peel? Are you saying the surface stays pliable longer and gets imprinted with the auger surface? Is there another physical phenomena to which you refer? Do large Peltiers show this? Root Beer Floats? I didn't see this orange peel on the Vitro Parrots in the Boulders post. Did anyone else have the same exact type of orange peel? (Akro, Marble King, etc.) FYI, that orange peel shown in Post #18 and #28 is also on some of my Vacor 5/8" and 1" marbles. Obviously, the depth is less as the marble gets smaller (lighter). Just a thought, but I bet you Vacor media-blasts their augers to remove rust and improve friction. I blasted my tooling once to accelerate machine break-in. What a disaster! Terrible orange peel! Need to find those and look at their surface. Galen: Your post right after Mike's reminded me of Jon Lovitz. Yeah, that's the ticket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyp9fh-u4w8 Thanks for the levity! Anyhow, you bring up a good point about showing samples of dirty rollers. How do you think Vacor would clean jacked-up augers? Maybe they would media blast them in place and not have to disassemble the machine? Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: I guess you are saying that if the rollers are perfectly smooth one would never see the orange peel effect on these large marbles, Perfectly smooth, no. Look at this picture below. Focus on the light from my computer monitor. Notice the surface differences of the Shamrock (on the Left) and the Vacor (on the Right)? The Shamrock is 1.330" diameter and the Vacor is 1.316" diameter (around 1-5/16" diameter for both). The Shamrock weighs 51.21 grams and the Vacor weighs 49.19 grams. The Shamrock glass density is 41.57 g/in^3 and the Vacor glass density is 41.22 g/in^3. The Shamrock is COE 96 and the Vacor is an unknown COE. Glass hits my rollers anywhere between 1800F to 2200F. The rollers are at room temperature (55F-100F). Sometimes people, myself included, overlook the obvious right under their nose. These marble machines have been around for years (if not decades) and their auger surfaces have "aged". Here's the rub... The Shamrock marble was formed under the same laws of physics (dynamics and heat transfer) that the Vacor was subjected during it's creation. No uneven core shrinkage is evident on the Shamrock. Cooling glass does not behave like a dehydrating grape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrHzi7fYezQ Between you and me, I'm good if we disagree, but I'm equally good if we do agree. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Griff: Now increase your assumed "blank"temp of 2200 by increments of 100. Sure, were does one stop? 2300F? 3000F? 10,000F? Do you know the average temperature of a gob of glass as it is delivered to the rollers? If you do, then that would be great and we could use that number! Please share! What happens to the contraction rate,and the contraction time? Contraction with respect to temperature is constant. Keeping all things equal, heat transfers at a constant rate. If you increase the initial temperature, it will take longer for the object to cool to the same target temperature. Machine made marbles cool from the outside,in,and expell the heat from the inside out. If I'm not mistaken, even hand-made marbles cool the same way. Come to think of it, pretty much everything else would, too. The flow of thermal energy is from higher state bodies to lower state bodies. The gob of glass is transferring it's energy to the surrounding environment through radiation, convection and conduction. Radiation via infrared. Convection via the air. Conduction via the rollers. Notice the orange peel,and COLD ROLLED marks on Ann's photo? Yes. Ann's picture is actually Galen's from post #18. I think I have responded to this photo in posts #20, #22, #24 and #31. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: I like to look John, not think(LOL) Maybe thats why I often post with out first thinking (loL) . Darn. I thought you were an intellectual. So, when I read your posts to people asking questions, is there any way I would know if you've actually given it thought or just felt like hearing your keyboard "clack"? For some odd reason, I think you've just told everyone to ignore any of your posts. I do not believe those wrinkles in that marble were pushed in by roller issues, but then I am not sure you are saying they were? Or are you saying the rollers just don't have a chance to smooth out the wrinkles before they cool? but that seemed obvious? The imperfections in the auger/roller will dimple the surface of the glass. The large underlying mass of molten glass is still very fluid as the surface cools. The augers are placing forces to get the sphere to rotate on multiple axis. These forces cause the gob to be "kneaded". This kneading action will shift the surface that is still slightly pliable. Impressions ("dots") on the surface are localized weak zones. Some of the individual "dot" impressions will be merged together as the surface shifts, thus creating various length "ovals", "valleys" or "amoeba" geometries. Larger folding areas are larger collapse zones (I think a PC term is "cold roll marks"). Notice how some of the "longer" wrinkles are parallel to these longer "creases", "seams" or "cold roll marks"? Now, there are other defects not discussed here. Such as, football ends, nipples, rams heads, shear marks, shear tails, etc. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"

Galen: Way too technical for me. Sorry, it starts taking the fun out of it when I have to think too hard(LOL) So, says they guy that pulls out a high magnification scope studying micro-scratches on the surface of a toy marble in the effort to collect forensic evidence to validate the genesis of said marble? Now that's funny, right there! I have also seen fused glass come out of a kiln that got an orange peel texture. Make sure you're not looking at devitrification. Sincerely, John McCormick "Shamrock Marbles"