# Marble tower



## Woodcanuck (Mar 9, 2010)

*Working from a set of plans*

This is one of those well intentioned projects that started and got put on hold for many varied reasons/excuses. I've decided I just have to finish it before my daughter is too old to be interested. Otherwise, I'll be sitting the playroom losing my marbles all by myself.

I saw these plans years ago in a Lee Valley flyer and went out and bought them along with the kit that supplies the ball bearings (marbles), xylophone keys and bell. Here's the picture from the catalog since the plans themselves don't have any photographs of the finished product (strike one against the plans themselves).










I have since seen this a couple of times on the web and some enterprising person created charity gumball machines on a larger scale that do more or less the same thing with a gumball.

Here's what you get in the plans….three green double sized, double sided, sheets of paper with "measured drawrings" and long winded instructions.










To Lee Valley's credit, they included an "errata" sheet with recommendations for altering the instructions to reduce ambiguity. This was certainly helpful, but clearly shows that the plans themselves were challenged to begin with.

Plan Review: Ok, now that I've griped a bit about the plans, I'll sum up my review of them. I have purchased plans before and had mixed results. This is on the bottom end in terms of user friendliness as far as plans go. They've tried to minimize the paper used, but done so at the expense of the person using them. In general I would not repeat this process with these plans…I would likely draw up my own next time.

I have been working on this 'on and off' for quite some time….but I'm dedicated to wrapping it up now, so I'll post my progress as I get each stage done.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Woodcanuck said:


> *Working from a set of plans*
> 
> This is one of those well intentioned projects that started and got put on hold for many varied reasons/excuses. I've decided I just have to finish it before my daughter is too old to be interested. Otherwise, I'll be sitting the playroom losing my marbles all by myself.
> 
> ...


Sounds like fun(the watching part) look forward to more updates .


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## Woodcanuck (Mar 9, 2010)

*What I've done so far*

I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand. 

Here's where we stand today on the project:










The first step was to build the base and attach the side rails to it that go up to where the cross bracing and the handle reside. This wasn't too bad to do…but it was the first time that I ran into the concept of cutting compound angles…which I learned requires patience rather than skill. I sometimes lack both…but I got through it.

Next was the starter mechanism. This is very cool…and equally frustrating. I haven't got this working 100% yet and will likely wait until the very end to complete it. The marbles line up in the top and you prime the system with one marble after the mechanism. The lower bar tilts up and down allowing the next marble to pop through the mechanism and start down the rails….and so on until they're all running. When it works reliably I'll try and shoot a short video.










From above:










Next up was the circular run around the rails before dropping into the xylophone. This was a major pain the butt. Again, compound angles and short patience conspired against me.  You need to compensate for a 5 degree angle against the outside rail, plus the 60 degrees to join around the hexagon, plus a 5-10 degree drop in elevation to keep the marble moving. Let's just say there are more than a couple of mis-cuts still taunting me on my bench.










Next up was the xylophone. Now we're having fun. This was a fun little piece to build and it makes noise!!! The one gotcha I encountered was trying to paint the keys. I thought it would be nice to paint them bright colours. I tried priming them and using some enamel paints, but this was not giving me the look I was expecting. In the end, I removed the paint and buffed them up a bit to leave them as unadorned metal.










After the xylophone the marbles are supposed to shoot into a little cyclone type thing. The plans called for building a support bar (see the original post and you'll see the picture) and using laminated strips of thin plywood cut in a spiral and glued/screwed down onto the support bar. I didn't want to do it this way. So, to challenge myself, I decided to try laminating together a large segmented bowl that would act like a funnel that the marbles can spin around and drop out the bottom.

I have never tried segmented turning before, so this was much more challenging for me than I expected. I turned it this week and it works fairly well. I've got a few joints that aren't as clean as I'd like and the center at the bottom has some small segments that blew out while I was turning it. I'll keep working on cleaning it up until I'm happy with it and I'll also be creating my own mounting mechanism.

The funnel bowl:


















Here's approximately where it's going to sit….after I figure out how to mount it and put a transition rail from the xylophone on to the funnel.


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


the absolute coolest I've every seen


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## Woodcanuck (Mar 9, 2010)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


Thanks Jim…you've always got an uplifting comment.


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## LateNightOwl (Aug 13, 2009)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


Jim is right, this is way cool! It is a fascinating toy for kids of all ages.
I look forward to following your blogs on this.


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## SPalm (Oct 9, 2007)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


That is so cool. I love it.
I bet it will never be done, as in you can always think of something more to add.

Good Job,
Steve


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## ND2ELK (Jan 25, 2008)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


It looks like you are doing fine. Things like this seems to need a little altering to get them to work. Looking forward to the finished project. Thanks for posting.

God Bless
tom


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## flyfisherbob2000 (Mar 22, 2010)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


looking forward to the finished project!


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


Great project!


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## FatherHooligan (Mar 27, 2008)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


Great blog! Really cool project!


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## Georgiana (Aug 3, 2018)

Woodcanuck said:


> *What I've done so far*
> 
> I wanted to make the marble tower good and solid, so I'm making it primarily out of ash. This was convenient because I had some on hand.
> 
> ...


Does anybody sell one of these? There are obviously some increadibly creative woodworkers out there, which does not include me. All I've been able to find are chintzy little kits or table-size erector-type toys, often also kits-or an occasional pattern for woodworkers. I did find an Amish page of marble runs, but they were quite simple and not terribly attractive.


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