Tiger Eyes and Akro vs Master Made marbles suit...

[bumblebee]

I was reading over the 1937 lawsuit by Akro against Master where it is clearly described that Master had a clear glass tank they dumped molten or gob glass into to produce (presumably) their entire Sunburst line. It's great reading and I regret not digesting it more earlier.

Perhaps @Shamrock Marbles can help me here, but the very distinct Tiger Eye marble by Master appears to always have a) a lot of clear base glass, and b) orange, red, and purple glass. My understanding is these more clear-based glass Master Made marbles are their earliest marbles. Later we see the familiar brownish/fall colored sunbursts with less clear base glass.

The questions I hope to find answers for are:

1. How did Master get such a consistent Tiger Eye marble? Were they simply dumping just those three colors into their single clear glass tank for a time and that's that?

2. How come so many Master Sunbursts have brownish/fall colors (presumably their later productions) and seem to "blend" more? I recall once that Rich (Santa) said that in some colors spontaneously appear under the right chemical conditions so I was wondering whether Master just dumping gobs or molten glass into the clear base glass was causing these typically brownish colors by some chemical process (rather than they were actually dumping 'brown" glass into the pots)?

So much we don't know!

[Shamrock Marbles]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:15 AM, bumblebee said:

I was reading over the 1937 lawsuit by Akro against Master where it is clearly described that Master had a clear glass tank they dumped molten or gob glass into to produce (presumably) their entire Sunburst line. It's great reading and I regret not digesting it more earlier.

Perhaps @Shamrock Marbles can help me here, but the very distinct Tiger Eye marble by Master appears to always have a) a lot of clear base glass, and b) orange, red, and purple glass. My understanding is these more clear-based glass Master Made marbles are their earliest marbles. Later we see the familiar brownish/fall colored sunbursts with less clear base glass.

The questions I hope to find answers for are:

1. How did Master get such a consistent Tiger Eye marble? Were they simply dumping just those three colors into their single clear glass tank for a time and that's that?

2. How come so many Master Sunbursts have brownish/fall colors (presumably their later productions) and seem to "blend" more? I recall once that Rich (Santa) said that in some colors spontaneously appear under the right chemical conditions so I was wondering whether Master just dumping gobs or molten glass into the clear base glass was causing these typically brownish colors by some chemical process (rather than they were actually dumping 'brown" glass into the pots)?

So much we don't know!

When making marbles, it is about statistical distribution of outcomes.

The lawsuit documents discuss how Master added color to the glass without the benefit of a controlled injection like the Freese patent (Akro).

What I have not seen are the visuals showing where Master added their color to the clear base.

Molten glass has to behave under the laws of physics (thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, etc.). I speculate that the color was added in the same location at consistent intervals nearest the forehearth nozzle.

The shorter distant will equate to lesser time that the glass is subject to heat and interaction with adjacent streams.

I would expect that Master experimented with their setups and runs and noted outcomes.  Those outcomes they liked, they reproduced.

Placing a color glass further away from the nozzle exposes the color to longer heat time, which may result in changes to color intensity (dense opaque to translucent to totally disappearing), and shade shift (red to brown).

Add two colors together and the more time they have to swim together, they can "blend" or "mix" together.

The words "blending" and "mixing" can be trigger words.  Especially when it comes to colors.

Chemical reaction between two colors can occur at boundary layers.  Consider the dark color between the blue base and red or yellow ribbons on a Peltier Superman.

Here's a video to make you think:

In the end, we don't know what exactly Master did to get their desired outcomes. Only "thoughtful speculation" is what we have.

John

[bumblebee]

Great food for thought as always, John! That video is very fascinating and I need to re-watch it a couple of times.

Based on your comments about process and trial and error, I speculate they likely spent more time during their early production of the heavily clear-based Sunbursts to end up with those earlier examples (such as what we call the Tiger Eye) with their more vivid colors and less "blending".

In #25, they describe what to me sounds like a perfect recipe for later Sunburst marbles, basically dumping a lot of colored glass without control into a large body of clear glass:

Quote

25. That in defendants' apparatus, both the clear molten body glass, and the colored glass, or glasses, are contained in, and emanate from, the flow-tank; and that in the relatively large body of molten clear glass in the flow-tank, defendants put or dumped colored glass or glasses, in the form of lumps or in a molten state, and that the colored glass was undirected and uncontrolled, and when melted, simply settled down in the clear glass in the flow-tank; and could be put in different places in the flow-tank of clear glass. (Rec. 328-358; 698, 699; 569-571.) There was no control over the color after the colored glass was once placed in the single tank of defendants. (Rec. 571.) The defendants' marbles show irregular colors adjacent the surface of the marbles.

From here we could speculate that their earlier runs were a challenge to produce consistently, so they started mixing in far more colored glass to produce what are the more common and familiar "blended" sunbursts that rarely have clear base glass.

I have updated my original patent suit link to a far superior version that contains images.

[Shamrock Marbles]

On 8/23/2019 at 10:36 AM, bumblebee said:

Great food for thought as always, John! That video is very fascinating and I need to re-watch it a couple of times.

Based on your comments about process and trial and error, I speculate they likely spent more time during their early production of the heavily clear-based Sunbursts to end up with those earlier examples (such as what we call the Tiger Eye) with their more vivid colors and less "blending".

In #25, they describe what to me sounds like a perfect recipe for later Sunburst marbles, basically dumping a lot of colored glass without control into a large body of clear glass:

From here we could speculate that their earlier runs were a challenge to produce consistently, so they started mixing in far more colored glass to produce what are the more common and familiar "blended" sunbursts that rarely have clear base glass.

I have updated my original patent suit link to a far superior version that contains images.

Great illustrations!  What would be nice to know if the illustration and the furnace geometry were to scale.  I speculate, no.

What is not explicitly stated in the text is the exact location where colored glass is added.  I would not expect this to be divulged, since it could be a matter of trade secrecy.

What we do have from 25 is: "and could be put in different places in the flow-tank of clear glass." This tells us that the location placements were selected to give different results.

--

One thing that has to be considered in the furnace are convection currents.  These currents "mix" the glass and can alter planned outcomes.

Depending on the furnace geometry (length, width and depth), heat source locations, refractory design, etc., there can be multiple loops.

In other words, when you place glass in the furnace at far end away from the nozzle, it doesn't travel in a straight-line.

I speculate the fill-in slabs are placed to alter convection currents.  Probably determined from experimentation.

Great stuff! -John