First of all you have to find a suitable pebble, of course. I'm lucky enough to live by the sea so I have a good source, I only take one every now and then, this is not something you can do a lot of as beaches need their pebbles.
Here are a couple of pebbles waiting to be turned into pendants. You can also see the multi tool I use to drill holes in the pebbles.
The pebbles have two holes drilled through them using a diamond burr, depending on what kind of stone it is it can take quite a while to drill through. Choose thin flat pebbles so that you don't have to spend too long drilling, I also have a limitation in that my diamond burr has 'shoulders' so where the drill widens is the limit of the depth I can drill to. I make pilot holes with a hand drill before using the electric one otherwise there can be problems with the bit sliding off the smooth surface.
This picture shows the hand drill with the diamond burr fitted.
Here's the pebble with the pilot holes drilled. The holes are quite shallow, just enough to give the motorised drill something to sit in. I use a light oil like 3 in 1 to lubricate the hole, and help keep it a little cooler. You have to stop frequently to remove the waste from the hole and add a little more oil.
Here's the first hole completely drilled through.
Starting the second hole, It's probably quite foolish to hold the stone by hand, More recently I used a lump of plasticine to hold the pebble, unfortunately the stone gets quite warm so the plasticine melts a bit, it's a safer way to hold the stone still, just remould the plasticine occasionally. I cheated this shot a bit, I needed my husband to photograph me so we took the stone to his work where there's a LOT more space. I work under the stairs in our tiny cottage so not much room for photography!
The next bit is making the silver bail. See you then.
No comments:
Post a Comment