Drilling stones

I have tried my dremmel, bought a dremmel drill press and use
diamond drill bits but I am not having much success. In drilling
tumbled stones.

G’day Cynthia and welcome; you don’t really need much more than
you have at this stage. Quartz-type rocks are very hard, but
diamond drills will tackle that. It seems to me that you are not
drilling with water as a lubricant and debris remover. I drill in
a fairly shallow dish with a piece of plywood stuck to the inside
of the bottom with bluetack. Put enough water in the vessel to
cover your rock by 1/4" Don’t press the drill too hard and keep
moving it up and down a little way every few seconds which will
also clear the drill as well as letting the cooling water swirl
around the drill. Don’t drill without the water or your drills
won’t last long. The reason for the ply is of course so that
when the drill gets through the rock, it doesn’t go through the
dish too! You might like to try a blob of bluetack on top of the
ply as well as under it to help hold the rock/bead steady. Time
enough to get better equipment when you really feel you need it.
But don’t expect to get through rock as easily as drilling steel
for instance; it will take several minutes to get through 1/2" of
agate.

    /\
   / /    John Burgess, 
  / /
 / //\    @John_Burgess2
/ / \ \

/ ()
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I drill in a fairly shallow dish with a piece of plywood stuck
to the inside of the bottom with bluetack. Put enough water in
the vessel to cover your rock by 1/4". Don’t drill without the
water or your drills won’t last long.

Hi John, Another trick is to build a wall around the (future)
hole from plasticine or something similar onto the stone and
fill that with water. Markus