Fried Marbles?
Akilli
As a kid, which in order to put into proper historical context, was in the
early 60's, there was a "craze" (pun maybe intended), for a toy called
"Fried Marbles". As I recall, you would take the supplied colored marbles,
heat them up in a pan, and drop them into water. They would emerged riddled
with attractive cracks. Also supplied were findings, so that you could
produce, for example, a set of earrings, which your mother would promptly
relegate to the most infrequented recess of her jewelry box. But I digress...
My question, after this long preamble, is why didn't these marbles
shatter? Were they were some sort of "safety glass", and wouldn't this
require that there be some plastic lamination involved ? The effect was
quite nice, and might bear repeating, albeit not with marbles, now that I
am an "adult".
Much Obliged,
Ethan Gross
Diana Evans
Thanks! You made my day!! This was something I also
did as a kid. This was my dad's attempt at keeping us
occupied making "interesting" jewelry while he worked
with his jewelry. After he died and we came across the
marbles, my brother asked if we had realized how deprived
we were growing up - other kids baked chocolate chip
cookies while we just baked marbles. Memories are hard
to beat! Have a good day and thanks.
Bert Weiss
In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.970929...@internet.oit.edu>,
Diana Evans <eva...@OIT.EDU> wrote:
Here's what is happening . First you heat the glass to a temperature above
it's strain point. and then plunge it in to water which quickly cools the
outside surface. The hotter inside cools slower and when it cools it
contracts more than the outside. This is tempering the glass. The quick
cooling is more than the glass can handle so it shatters. Tempered glass
breaks in square pieces. The round shape of the marble is held together by
the slight angle tensions between the pieces of broken glass. If you hit
the shattered marble with a hammer it will break apart in little square
edged pieces that aren't particularly sharp.
I use a similar technique to crush 1/2" thick window glass. I place chunks
of glass in a stainless steel bowl and heat it up to 1250 F for 30 minutes
and then remove the bowl and pour water in the bowl. The glass is about
1000 degrees hotter than the water. This causes the glass to shatter. I
then put it in a plastic bucket and beat on it with stainless steel.
Finally I sift it through a loam screen. I can run my bare hands through
a bucket of this stuff and not get cut . I guess that's why they call it
safety glass.
--
Bert Weiss Glass Studio
Painted Art Glass
Custom Productions
Architectural and Sculptural Cast Glass
Collaborative Art Glass
Lighting design
