Sorry that happened! Yeah, I think we’ll leave all the hard work to you. 
I just figured out what I did.
-
YOu have to contantly be flushing the hole with water as lubrcation and to clear the hole. I wasn’t doing that…oops.
-
My glass cutting bit is a v-tipped carbide bit. Apparently diamond-tipped bits are the way to go for this, so I’m going to go shopping this evening for a diamond bit set. I’ll see if I can rig up a steady water feed over my work. By my reading, it looks like it’ll take me 20 minutes to drill each ball. Yowza. Definitely going to invest in a drill press if this works out and becomes popular!
(No comments on good, bad, or ugly???)
BTW, looks like my descriptions aren’t so clear-cut. It looks like a have a few chrome/iridescent balls here (almost like there were chrome, but since they shipped with iridescents…well, some of the finish rubbed off!) and I have a clear one here that doesn’t appear to be iridescent at all. Found some baby-blue iridescents too. More pictures are in order.
They weren’t kidding on the mixed bag. Random is the word of the day apparently.
Torpedo Metal Look
Amethyst Iridescent
Pink Iridescent (looks a bit orange, depending on the angle…)
Emerald Iridescent
Seimitsu Bubble vs Clearys Iridescent
Nice balls. No homo.
If you can get the drilling down and the threaded insert in cleanly, those will look damn awesome.
coooooooool
nice ball tops 
i like the green transparent and blue one
torpedo blue is SEXXAAHHHHH, wouldn’t mind grabbing a few once you figure out how to drill them
Those would look really nice once you get things to work right. And either one of those torpedo blue or light blue ones look like they would go nice with my next idea for a stick.
hey, where did you get those inserts?
New bits, but I’m out of time for the night. Here’s the progress I made on my second attempt. The gash is just a surface thing that was there before I started. I picked the ugliest one of the bunch:
After all was said and done, Grainger had some.
As you can see, I’ve reached thread-width, but not insert-width. It’s also need deep enough yet for me to just rest on the sticks, so no pictures yet of what that will look like.
Looks as though I’m going to have to go to a glass shop to have multiples of these done though. I have a working glass-drilling rig now, but what you’re looking at is 30 minutes of drill time, and I’m maybe halfway there. No offense guys, but an hour per ball of me standing around drilling is insane. 
I know a shop here in town that drills holes in glass for $8/hole. If that’s true, then if they’d do these for me the cost per ball top would be my time to set things up + $1/ball + $2/insert. So probably $20 each after shipping. Not too bad so long as I do these in bunches.
45 minutes of drilling:
I’m far enough into the ball now that it will somewhat rest on the joystick’s shaft and I can take a picture. Obviously it’s shifting it’s weight to the back in order to get it to stay put, but that’s an oily-look amethyst iridescent ball. Should give you a bit of an idea as to what these will look like.
All of the pictures I’ve taken so far have made these look opaque. This is just to demonstrate that they really are translucent.
That, and when drilled, they look like tiny death stars.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1260/571740360_0eba1f0b76.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/numbski/571740360/
If you aren’t 100% that you have the proper depth in your hole, this is what will happen when you attempt to set the insert. 
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/571740472_16266df471.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/numbski/571740472/
Closer shot of what happened when I went to set the insert. If you look carefully, I was just a slight bit too shallow in my drilling, so when I went to set the insert, the excess force caused the ball to split. Lesson learned…maybe the third time will be the charm?
Wouldn’t it be easer to ask them to make the hole on the ball, while they are making it, aka when its heated etc? I been following this thread, and really like the fact your trying to bring something unprecedented. But my limited experience with marbles, tells me, theres no way one will be able to have a good yield, let alone maybe even have the shaft correctly drilled. I would assume they will shatter almost if not every time. I hope I am wrong, because I am really looking forward to this project. Though I think there may be a better way, or try an alternative. I leave it to you ;). Thanks for the updates and pics though, took a little while, was going a little crazy ;).
those baby blue and pearl green are wonderful, get this process on lock and i’d definitely be a customer.
I disagree. The only reason that one split was because I didn’t drill deeply enough. Trust me on this one, it would have worked fine.
I didn’t have a chance to mess with anything until I got home this evening. I went to the local glass shop, and they confirmed it’s $8/hole, but the shop guys had left for the day. I’m going to meet them again in the morning and we’ll see if they can do this more effeciently than me.
In the meantime, I decided to start on a clearys. Obviously I’m being more careful this time around, although I exerted just a touch too much pressure early that caused a slight amount of cracking. Probably wouldn’t even be noticeable if it weren’t a clearys. 
I stopped because my ears were ringing, and my arms hurt. Took me about 45 minutes to get this far this time. A bit faster, but still…I think I’ll let the pros handle this from here on out.
another look…
Higher res shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/numbski/archives/date-posted/2007/06/20/
Awe man!!! When are you gonna start sellin your balls?I’m quite interested in your Clearys Iridescent ball, its FTW!
Okay, I just got down to my office, and I stopped at the glass shop on the way here. I left some inserts and balls with them, and what they’re telling me is that since it’s a two person job (balls don’t like to stay put…) it will be $15/hole. So here’s my conundrum - I have something like 40 of these left. I owe people that contributed, and I’ve incurred an expense on my own part. What I’m asking permission to do is go ahead and bite the bullet on $45 worth of drilling holes and send people the tops I owe, and put the rest up for sale to cover my expenses. If everyone is okay with that arrangement, after I get the test ball back, I’ll put up what I have inventory of, collect payment, and then take them all to the glass shop at once to be done, and ship them out.
If I go that route, I’d be selling this batch for $25/ball. That should be enough to cover my expenses. Shipping isn’t included…I still need to find appropriate packaging for these as they are somewhat fragile.
Once I get head nods from the involved parties, I’ll put up my inventory. Those that contributed will get first dibs picking what colors they want, and then I’ll open the floor to everyone else.
Sound reasonable?