in Great Britian
House of Marbles in Devon England home of Great Britians biggest marble run. This is cool!
Cuneo Furnace was founded in 1971 as Maslach Art Glass. It is one of the oldest and most innovative glassmaking studios in the United States. These handmade beauties are pretty rare these days as the factory has closed but the House of Marbles has a collection.
How do they make "handmade marbles?"
Their highly decorative marbles are all handmade. Firstly they create a patterned glass rod - this is the incredibly hard part. They utilise 16th century Italian glass techniques, latticinio, filigrana and zanfirico. Each colour and strand is a separate piece of glass cane or ribbon. The design is constructed of molten glass with layers of cane and collared glass. The pattern is cased in crystal, shaped and is drawn out to reduce it in size. The pattern rods are cut into small pieces, heated, twisted and shaped to the complete design. The process takes several days and combines heavy, hot furnace work, tricky and difficult shaping, as well as the final smoothing and polishing.
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