Greetings: I’m looking for a better, faster solution to drilling holes
in rock slices. I’m in the process of creating very thin, matched
earring pairs from attractive lapidary materials, that I then tumble
polish. But now I need to drill holes for the earring findings. So
far I’ve done this by hand with a small lspidary core drill in my
flex shaft. It takes me 5-15 minutes per hole depending on the
material, and I have to pull the rock out of the center of the core
drill after each one. Ho-hum!
There has to be a better, faster hi-production method to do this for
a small scale shop. A friend recommended that I sened my finished
slices to someone with a laser drill.
Does anyone know someone to whom I can contract this work? If so what
should I pay for 500-1000 pairs that are typically 2-3mm thick. The
material ranges from jade to agates/jaspers to softer rocks. Is there
another production method that I should consider? A drill press is no
good. I’ve tried that and it breaks my pieces and takes just as long
and doing it by hand, which results in far less breakage.
thanks
Virginia Lyons