I’ve heard that we have a way to drill through stones at the Makerspace. How? I know you have to do it in a water bath, but I don’t see anything like that in the jewelry or lapidary area.
There is definitely not a drill specifically made for drilling stones (no water bath) in the jewelry area. Typically stones are ground … not drilled in the same sense as one may do in the machine shop or wood shop. Generally some sort of diamond coated grinding bit is used. There are certainly a few bits like that in the jewelry area.
When we drill glass, we set the glass on a wet sponge in a small container of water. Glassworks does have a drill where we use that “system”. (It’s a little tupperware container.)
What hardness is your stone?
I did not have any in mind in particular, but I take it that I can’t grind through stones with hardnesses much higher than glass.
You might have bring your own drill bit. That’s a good idea anyway. That way you know it’s sharp.
Google constant tension drill press device, it’s like a counter weight you hold spool around the pull arm with a weight! So instead of sitting there with your arm slowly losing strength you can just pull up a seat and watch it do its thing! Now this has to be water cooled drilling and the counter weight has to be fine tuned with a bit but if done successfully you’ll have a hole instead of a whole lot of arm fatigue in the a.m.
Also keep in mind use plumbers putty to create a little water moat around the bit and fill it to the brim and then no coolant system needed just depending on how deep the piece or thing is maybe refilling might be necessary
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