Just made this today. Its clear pyrex glass with encased silver fuming. Silver or gold is what is used to fume glass pipes to make them color changing. Got a good fume goin on this one, sorry for the crappy photo
That is cool! Is it perfectly round? Have you made other glass stuff before, or is this something you can start with?
Im a glassblower lol, I make tons of things out of glass. It is just about perfectly round, there is a tiny mark where the punty was but its not noticable by eye. My initials are scribed on it too you just cant see them. Marbles are alot of fun, produce many trippy ocular effects. I can stare at this one for hours
Thanks guys, and no I cannot make one the size of a bowling ball with my current set up. Probably a baseball but that would take a long ass time. I will try to find a better camera.
Is this a solid piece or is it hollow? To heat the glass, do you use a kiln or a torch? (or maybe some kind of forge?) Is this fuming process done by vaporizing the silver in a kiln or some controlled atmosphere? Zw
Its completely solid, I heat the glass with a torch, I bounce a piece of glass with fine silver on it up and down at the base of a reducing flame while I rotate the piece at the tip of the flame and the silver fumes onto it. Then you gotta encase that in clear glass or else the flame will burn the fume off
Nice, thanks for the details. P.S. dude, I'll trade you one of my crotals for one of your marbles...? http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=408312&page=2 ZW
They sound very cool. The little ones sound like the classic jingle bell or sleigh bell, and the larger ones sound really tribal. A bunch of different crotals sounding together in a big 'wash' is what I'm going for...I'll post a recorded clip when I get enough bells amassed. In the glass realm, ever though about making musically resonant pieces? Glass xylophone keys? I'm thinking that a glass gong could be possible theoretically, but I don't know what the logistics would be for an artisan scale shop. Edit; oh! oh! the ultimate glass instrument... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gx5Dk-42lE&feature=related"]YouTube - Glassharmonica / "Grave" (Röllig) by Thomas Bloch ZW
I just saw how industrial marbles are made a few weeks ago on the show "how its made" making by hand is pretty neat
Ill trade ya a marble for a nice tribal sounding one. It takes time to make a marble, but if you can love it I am more than happy to trade. You want a sweet fumed one like the one in the picture? Or one with solid colors. I can probably make some of the best marbles most have ever seen.
