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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for September 23, 1999
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How are glass marbles made?
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Glass marbles can be made by hand or by a machine. In most cases,
each marble starts out at the end of a rod of semi-molten glass.
After a round blob is formed, it is sliced off by a pair of
scissors. The rod usually contains strands of different-colored
glass, which appear as shapes in the final marble.
Before machine-made marbles, every glass marble had an obvious defect
called the pontil. This was a rough spot where the marble was
finally snipped free of the rod. Modern marble-making machines send
the soft marbles into a long trough where rollers shape them into
perfect spheres and polish the pontils until they are microscopic.
Today, the very best "art" marbles are hand-made, but with much
better tools, methods, and glass "recipes." The very best of these
methods and recipes are carefully guarded secrets, held by a few
experts.
Play marbles with the best at the Mountaineer Marble Tournament:
http://www.marbles.net/
Marble collecting can be a fun hobby:
http://users.townsqr.com/rsilva/
http://www.macatawa.org/~rlo/index.htm
Today's Cool Word is marble:
http://www.cool-word.com/archive/1999/09/23.html
Today's sponsor: Copernicus Interactive www.EdGate.com/edunews
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Copyright (c) 1999, The Learning Kingdom, Inc.
http://www.LearningKingdom.com
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