Need stones drilled

Does anyone know who can drill agate from me. I need a number of
stones drilled with a 2 - 3 mm hole. Looking for someone with an
ultrasound drill.

Thanks

Joe Kilpatrick
Expressions With Metal

Contact Vince King at Apache Gems. They have ultrasonic drilling
capabilities. His email is: Vybtl@aol.com

	Carol


| Carol J. Bova @Carol_J_Bova |
| Home of The Eclectic Lapidary e-zine |
| http://www.bovagems.com/eclectic/ |
‘’

Hi guys and dolls

I am a knife maker and I have a problem that I hope you can help
me with. I want to make an art dagger with a stone [Crystal]
handle. The blade is complete, guard and butt cap need to be
polished before I am ready to try handle again. The crystal is 5
in. long and 1.5 in. at the butt end and 1.25 at the guard end. The
drill hole needs to be .5 in in diameter full length of the stone.
How do I do this. Have tried drilling under water with diamond
drill used for construction drilling becouse could not find any
drill bits large enough in jewelers sales manual. Shattered first
stone and I stopped work till I found out how to drill hole. If any
one knows how to put fluts[grooves that twist around the stone like
the stripes on a barber pole] in to stone so I can insert twisted
gold and silver wire in the fluts [my next art knife] I would
really appreciate any input you might have.

Thank you for your time.

Jim Fagan

Jim, check with a lapidary. See if there is a gem & mineral
society or a lapidary club in your area. From what you have
described, you need to have a quartz crystal carved and polished.
The gem clubs can point you in the right direction.

Allyson

   The crystal is 5 in. long and 1.5 in. at the butt end and 1.25
at the guard end. The drill hole needs to be .5 in in diameter
full length of the stone. How do I do this....If any one knows how
to put fluts[grooves that twist around the stone like the stripes
on a barber pole] in to stone so I can insert twisted gold and
silver wire in the fluts [my next art knife] I would really
appreciate any input you might have. 

You’ve picked a dandy lapidary project here! Drilling a straight
half-inch diameter hole through 5 inches of rock crystal is a job
that would make most experienced stonecutters cower in a corner,
trembling. It CAN be done but certainly not easily (unless someone
knows of an ultrasonic drill capable of work on that scale). In my
estimation a diamond core drill might do the trick, but it may be
difficult to find one capable of taking a 5-inch-deep “bite” in one
swell foop. You might have to have a special core drill made with a
5-inch working depth, but even a precision-made tool of that
length would probably have a tendency to “wander,” which could
cause breakage and sloppy drilling. Another option would be to use
a shorter drill and cut from both ends, with the hole meeting in
the middle. But that would require incredibly precise set-up.

The core drill would have to be used in a drill press and some
arrangements would have to be made for 1) keeping the quartz xl
fastened in perfect longitudinal alignment with the core drill and
2) doing the entire procedure under water. Once you get all this
set up and are ready to start drilling, be sure to wear your most
comfortable shoes and practice your lightest touch: it’s going to
take a long time and one wrong move could shatter the stone.

As for cutting flutes into the crystal’s surface, that’s easier.
You’ll need a flexible shaft machine and diamond cutting wheels and
sintered diamond points of the appropriate shapes. Simply lay out
your design with a waterproof marking pen and grind the flutes to
the desired shape/depth, dipping the workpiece in water often to
lubricate your cutting wheels and to remove swarf. (Take proper
precautions against electrocuting yourself!) If you’re very careful
you probably won’t have to polish the fluted areas because the
metal will cover them, although the abraded areas will be frosted
and visible through the stone. If you set the metal into place
with epoxy, the epoxy will “polish” the areas that have been
ground. You can do touch-up polishing with diamond compound and a
variety of specialized polishing wheels. Don’t plan to undercut
the flutes and hammer the gold wire into place! One hammer blow
will shatter the quartz: there’s a big difference between hardness
and toughness in minerals! Email if I can help with tool sources,
etc.

Rick Martin in Ventura County, CA, where May showers are drowning
the April flowers.