Making Rolley Hole marbles this year

[RolleyHoleMan]

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. 

[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. 

[Joe2]

[Ric]

6 hours ago, RolleyHoleMan said:

Been a while since I’ve done an update . . .

Thanks for the update, and nice work - it looks like you are well on your way to 100 marbles!

[Ric]

@Joe2 Nice, I am really liking that Snowflake Obsidian!

[Joe2]

3 hours ago, Ric said:

@Joe2 Nice, I am really liking that Snowflake Obsidian!

Much nicer in hand

[RolleyHoleMan]

That’s one of the main things with marbles. You can take pictures all day long but you can never really capture a marble the way your eyes can. My quartz marbles have many cool things going on inside them which is always hard to capture. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here’s a couple more from today. The brown marble is from a piece sent to me by Matthew who makes marbles in Utah. I need to ask what it is.

Then other marble is from a very interesting sandy piece found in Overton County Tennessee, and it was more of a “can I make a marble from this”. The piece was very risky and my other cubes from it have more sand it seems, but it made a nice TN square marble. I did polish it a good bit just to see inside it. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here’s some poor photos of some rocks I’ve been tumbling. What I’ve started to do it if a piece is no good for marbles, it’ll get tumbled. These still had too much haze so they had to go back into the tumbler. 
 

I’m working on some more marbles, with one being from quartz found a few miles from home in the Emory River. There’s a small crack that may be able to be removed but there’s a long way to go. 
 

At some point I may list some more marbles but haven’t gotten around to it. My marble machine has gotten some extreme use and the bushings are starting to cause chatter. For normal work this isn’t an issue, but if I get to demonstrate, this machine needs to be as silent as possible. It’s hard to demonstrate and talk to let people know what you’re doing and why. 
 

Back to the tumbled pieces, some were used for marbles I’ve made and I have a ton that need to go into the tumbler. Polishing them up will help show people materials and what to look for / what is no good. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here’s some work from today. I’m still working on a couple seemingly solid shooter marbles, but did complete a marble from the Emory River here in Tennessee. As is normal for this material, it’s full of faults and issues that make it no good for shooting. I did accidentally drop it on concrete which is survived, but I was holding my breath as it bounced across the floor. 
 

I have another piece in the works that was found in the same area, but it’s white. I don’t know how good it’ll be but there is a fault that needs to be ground out. 
 

The material out here is no good, so it looks like the only option is to go back to Overton county at some point looking for more. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to get to marbles, so here’s 4 that are in the process. Two of these I would consider “finished” if I wanted to leave them with a rough finish and bigger, while the other two are still in the process of becoming round. 
 

These are still much bigger than most marbles I make, and I don’t really have a solid size picked out for these. 
 

The two darker and more patterned marbles are from material found in Roane County in the Emory river/ watts bar area. I often have said the material is no good in this area, but these I have some hope for. 
 

Geologically the area I’ve been picking from is not going to be the best since it is mostly flooded bottomland hardwood and farm land from the 1930s or so. What that means is these pieces were not subjected to the weathering and wear that normally would break apart the weaker material. When going through streams (old streams) in other areas, you’ll find broken pieces all over the place. Among those broken pieces you’ll find that nice good worn nodule that has that extra toughness to survive, or that’s at least how I look at it. 
 

In Roane county the quartz is often more microcrystalline than cryptocrystalline, meaning the structure is more blocky, less dense, and more fragile. Durability isn’t something expected from 90% or more of the material found out here. The pieces that could be durable usually have tons of sand deposits and other issues making them no good. 
 

Anyways that’s enough rock talk. Here’s some photos. 
 

I need to sort and list some marbles on Etsy at some point. What’s been most enjoyable is that there’s been people messaging me and ordering marbles who were originally from the area where Rolley Hole is played. It’s kept me pretty busy but has been enjoyable to be able to send out marbles while keeping Rolley Hole alive. 

[Steph]

Very interesting about where and why good stone can be found.   I like a little science on a weekend morning. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

I’ve not had time for marbles, but hopefully will be able to change that tomorrow. 
 

Right now I may have a lead on a rock saw. The owner isn’t very responsive and being Facebook marketplace, I’ve not got high hopes. However if it works out I will be able to really start cutting material properly and hopefully making better marbles with a better selection of material. 
 

My current saw is a table saw fitted with a rock blade. What little work I’ve done with it has caused this saw to rust out pretty badly. I also broke the mount for the motor and have it loosly fitted. Because of this, the blade often stops with a little bit of pressure. 
 

Anyways we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime I found some local stuff and for $20 I have built a more portable setup which runs pretty quiet. My current setup is large and loud due to the cart and bad bearings in the grinder causing chattering. 
 

The plans with the mobile setup is to take it to the park I’ve been assigned, plus it’ll go to some in services to teach people how to make marbles. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Only finished one marble today. This one was done from start to finish. I had some other marbles to spin but didn’t get all that far with them. 
 

Once a marble is round and smooth, it takes forever to get it down to size. 

 

Also, this material is not “butterscotch”. I’d more consider it yellow than the real candy-looking butterscotch. 

[Caterpillar]

Looks great! What material did you use?

[RolleyHoleMan]

17 hours ago, Caterpillar said:

Looks great! What material did you use?

A difficult question to answer actually. I only use local material and call most of it “quartz”. 
 

What it really is is Chalcedony. Materials such as Agate, Jasper, and Chert (to name a few) are also Chalcedony. Agate is banded Chalcedony, Jasper is opaque but colorful chalcedony, and chert is brown/grey/black Jasper which is… Chalcedony. 
 

That’s my understanding of it anyways. Not only am I always confused about it, I confuse everyone else. This is cryptocrystalline material while other material is microcrystalline (and will break). 
 

So. What this is is cryptocrystalline Chalcedony from a stream in Overton County Tennessee. Since it is yellow/orange it likely came in contact with elements such as Iron while it was forming.

The darker this material is, the more foreign non-silica material it came in contact with during formation. 

 

Hopefully this helps. I confuse myself quite a bit regarding material. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here was todays project. I got my new bushings fitted into this old “polishing head” or grinder depending on who you ask. Took a little bit of old school fighting and force to get the old ones out and the new ones in. 
 

Now it runs smooth and quiet. 
 

Total cost was like $8.00 from the local hardware store. 
 

A regular bench grinder is pretty expensive, though there is a ton of used options online. For the price of my 3 grinders, 3 motors, and gas engine I could have had a single bench grinder from the hardware store. 
 

Back in the day a bench grinder would have been an expensive luxury for the guys around here. External arbors powered by electric motors were used, as far as I can tell, to cut costs and to make use of old electric washing machine “laundry” motors. Bud Garret was one of the many people to use standard laundry motors. 
 

Facebook marketplace often has a good selection of “grandads old grinder” listings that have the same setup of a washing machine motor, old grinder arbor, and a household electric switch. 
 

Apaprently I can’t upload videos, but there is a drawback to the dust from marbles. My motor will no longer start automatically when power is applied. I either have to wrap a rope around it and use that as a pull cord to spin it, or use an electric drill. These washing motors do not have a starting capacitor but do have centrifugal clutches and starting coils. Best I can figure, the dust has messed with my motor. When it’s blown out with an air compressor/ taken apart and cleaned, it’ll start usually. 
 

No point in cleaning it out. The bearings are sealed so dust can’t grind the shafts. Once it’s going it’s going. 
 

 

So if anyone has grandads old tools laying around, think about making some marbles. It’s not too hard. 

[Caterpillar]

5 hours ago, RolleyHoleMan said:

Jasper is opaque but colorful chalcedony...

Can you source Jasper locally? If so, it would likely make a good-looking marble.

56 minutes ago, RolleyHoleMan said:

So if anyone has grandads old tools laying around, think about making some marbles.

I've thought about making marbles, even though I'd have to get the tools. Lack of secure storage space is what always kills such dreams for me.

[RolleyHoleMan]

17 hours ago, Caterpillar said:

Can you source Jasper locally? If so, it would likely make a good-looking marble.

I've thought about making marbles, even though I'd have to get the tools. Lack of secure storage space is what always kills such dreams for me.

The local Jasper, or what I think is Jasper, has a lot of issues. I have some nice smaller pieces I’ve tumbled which look pretty cool, but with marbles this material is no good. Every piece I find is very cracked up/fractured so it’s no good for marbles.

 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here’s the marbles for today. All are unfinished but one I have in that .80 ballpark. 
 

The difficulty I have now with making marbles is setting an end goal when it comes to size and finish. Players have their favorite size and finish, so it’s hard to settle on what to do when I don’t have a player in mind. 
 

What I’m thinking is getting all works in progress to that .80, then setting them aside if they’re good shooting marbles. From there they can be finished however a player wants them. Marbles that aren’t for play can be finished however I want them. 
 

For more decorative marbles where the goal is to show the beauty and faults in the material, I’m thinking of making them/leaving them larger around the .85-.90 mark, and polishing them up. 
 

As a side note, as I’ve learned the game I’ve had many changes in what kind of marble I like. When I was still at Standing Stone, a coworker and I would shoot marbles and found our shots to be more accurate with smaller ones. As time went on I think what happened was our smaller marbles were more gritty and controllable while the larger marbles were always polished up. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

It’s Friday, which means it’s marble day. I have a couple more marbles I might get to, but here’s two that are “finished”. 
 

I polished them a bit and am thinking of unpolishing one of them. When some marbles are polished, they have an uneven finish due to the structure of the material. When the same marble is rough, everything looks more uniform.  
 

The marble on the left is from the Emory River in Kingston, while the one on the Right is from Overton County. The marble on the right is from a nodule I was told was “no good”, but have gone on to make several good marbles and a few bad ones. 
 

Here’s a better picture of the Emory River marble. Structure-wise it looks like the other material in this area. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s easy to tell what pieces I have that are from the Emory River. The color is usually slightly yellow, with lots of white specs. The material also seems slightly less dense and more porous. 
 

The marble I just made is on the left, and one made by the local Mr.Carr is on the right. If I tossed it in with the boxes of marbles he gives to the kids, it would be impossible for anyone to tell it apart. 
 

Anyways, there’s still some time today for more marbles. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Decided to do some more marble work and made a roughly .98 or so marble. Since the material would probably be no good for Rolley Hole, there wasn’t a reason to make it to spec. 
 

This material is more material from Roane County, I think from the Clinch River not far from where it merges with the Tennessee River. The area I found this stuff is part of the Watts Bar impoundment I believe, so 80 years ago it was likely farmland. 
 

The quartz nodules or pieces here (I don’t really think these are considered nodules) have a black exterior while other areas have brown, yellow, or grey. 

These 4 marbles are made from material found in Roane County. The top marble and the left marble are from the area near K25. They came from one of those delightful little streams that has a bunch of signs that say the fish will give you cancer. 
 

The right reddish marble is from material found on the family farm. I guess it’s some kind of Jasper, but it’s hard to tell. Light slightly passes through it so safest bet is to just cal it chalcedony and move on. It’s a fragile material. 
 

Bottom marble is the one I made today. Photos are hard to take of these but they’re all pretty neat marbles. They are very layered and faulted except for todays marble, so none are any good. I would consider them microcrystalline due to how the material breaks and has a sandy textire when broken. 
 

I might make some more tomorrow. I have a marble that’s going to make an amazing shooter and good teaching marble if it will shape up. Some marbles like to fight. You’ll have it seemingly good and then it’s .05 or more off. Once it’s fixed and smoothed out it’s back to being off. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Here are todays marbles. I made a smaller (ringer) quartz marble around .74” which is within regulations for the marble game of Ringer. The marble ended up so small due to issues getting it round. Some really like to fight but I have lost my touch when it comes to shaping cubes in any shape besides a cylinder. I was trying to regain this skill but have hardly used it. I’ve made somewhere around 75 marbles and most have been made from cylinders. 
 

The second marble is made from a the prized yellow (though I don’t consider it butterscotch) material I found. I believe it is either my last cube or next to last of this material. 
 

Original goal was for it to be around .80, but I had a bad spot in the material that had to be ground away. In the end it’s a .78 marble which is around the size I prefer to play Rolley Hole with. I left the finish rough since that’s what I seen to be leaning towards when it comes to playing marbles. I’ll probably hang onto this one since the material is so rare, and it’ll help with teaching people marbles. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

Ended up getting the saw. I know it’s made by Highland Park, but don’t know anything else about it really. It does seem to run alright . 
 

it’s missing the (optional I think) auto feed parts. Sure would be cool to find that and not have to stand there. 

[RolleyHoleMan]

This morning I cut some test cubes. Seems all my remaining material is junk, but these two cubes will make some beautiful (but cracked) marbles. 
 

There are a couple more pieces I’ll try but for the most part I’m going to focus on trimming down cubes. 
 

Also the one cube I cut sure does have a butterscotch color going on. The material itself doesn’t pass light very well so the structure of the material is questionable.