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Handmade / Machine Formed
Marble Extravaganza
at Sauder Village
Thursday October 12th through Saturday October 15th
Thursday & Friday 10:00 – 3:30 · Saturday10:00 – 5:00 · Sunday 12:00 – 4:00
Local glass artists, Mark Matthews, Brent Young and Larry Zengel will all come together with engineer, John McCormick, to create Handmade, Machine formed marbles. Colorful glass nubs, a byproduct of the handmade glass marbles, will be first heated in the in the annealing oven to 1000°, then fused together. After heating the nubs to an extreme liquid state, the glass will be then dropped off the punty rod and snipped into the wheels of the glass forming machine to make a marble.
John McCormick, an engineer from Kansas, built his first and second generation machine by utilizing Martin F Christensen 1905 US patient for the very first marble rounding machine as a foundation. Early marble producers were looking for a way to increase production and the marble rounding machine came into play in this historic transitional time. See how this early concept forming machine works and watch the team produce these marbles with their handmade production castoff pieces.