Making a pen out of Real stone.

[Marker]

Hello,

Here is one of my projects that I started about 7 months ago.


I am going to try to make a pen from a piece of real stone that I bought off eBay about a year ago.


I bought this as Mexican Onyx, which I guess is Calcite. It is supposed to be #3 on the mohs hardness scale, so I believe that I can turn it with carbide.


Has anyone ever tried this before?





This was one big piece when I got it, and I just had a friend cut it into four pieces on his diamond saw.

If I am felling ambitious in the next week, I will cut it to length.


I am hoping That I will be able to drill it with a carbide drill bit with coolant.

 

[PenMan1]

It should be doable, depending on your lathe and tooling.

One recommendation. Use a cheap (HF) diamond file or a die grinder to round the corners and make the initial rough cuts. Stone is really hard on carbide tools. It can ruin carbide skews, AND it will chip out the inserts for carbide cutters.

Opposed to my original thinking, like petrified wood, I had much better results cutting at higher speeds than lower speeds.

Oh yeah, one other recommendation.....WEAR A FACESHIELD, respirator and a cup!

 

[PenMan1]

One other thing. Get yourself the drill bits necessary for the hardware in either Titianium coating or stone/tile bits (if you can find the correct size). After one use the bits are likely shot.

 

[wizard]

OHHH YEAH..done that...I kept messing up turning it. I would do everything that Andy noted...but I bought a diamond bit and used a jug of water with a pin hole in it above the drill press. I gave up..:redface:. In retrospect, I've wondered since some of this stone is slightly porous...if Curtis stabilizing system might be helpful. Doc
Edit..I might actually go back and try it using Andy's suggestions ..

 

[PenMan1]

OHHH YEAH..done that...I kept messing up turning it. I would do everything that Andy noted...but I bought a diamond bit and used a jug of water with a pin hole in it above the drill press. I gave up..:redface:. In retrospect, I've wondered since some of this stone is slightly porous...if Curtis stabilizing system might be helpful. Doc

Or thick CA with lots of accelerator? I did end up using CA.

 

[Sylvanite]

When I made a pen from Petoskey Stone, I had to first drill with a masonry bit. Any other bit would catch and break the stone. Unfortunately, masonry bits don't come in the size I needed, so I still had to ream the hole with a regular drill bit. If I ever make another one, I plan to wrap the blank in string and saturate it with CA glue to keep the stone together while drilling. I'll probably stabilize the stone as well.

I hope that helps,
Eric

 

[Haynie]

Check out the reinforcing stone part of this link

Alabaster Turning, How To Part 1, Max Krimmel

He talks about alabaster but I don't see why it would not work for other porous(sp) stone.

I would round on a belt sander if you have one. It worked for me a lot better than files or anything else

As for turning WEAR A RESPIRATOR and FACE SHIELD You may might be better off shaping with a stone rasp untill it is completely round, Then go after it with a turning tool. FOr alabaster my tool of choice is a scraper. If you hit a piece of quartz the blank will explode at high speed. Have fun and be careful

 

[PenMan1]

When I made a pen from Petoskey Stone, I had to first drill with a masonry bit. Any other bit would catch and break the stone. Unfortunately, masonry bits don't come in the size I needed, so I still had to ream the hole with a regular drill bit. If I ever make another one, I plan to wrap the blank in string and saturate it with CA glue to keep the stone together while drilling. I'll probably stabilize the stone as well.

I hope that helps,
Eric

Almost exactly my proceedure....EXCEPT I use surgical gauze instead of sting. Gauze holds more CA

 

[OKLAHOMAN]

Andy, wrapping in soaked CA gauze was an trick Eagle taught me on his segmented (inlaide work) when drilling and something I still do today on any segmented, stone or blank I feel has the possibility to BLOW-UP on drilling.

 

[PenMan1]

LOL! Roy, I didn't know Eagle, other than reading his posts on forums.

Either he was really talented, or like me, could FUBAR an anvil!

I use gauze on EVERYTHING that has been cut on an angle or contains bone, antler, etc.
THE ONE EXCEPTION is on Gator jaw bone. Where I live, putting gauze on GATOR is considered giving aid to the enemy

 

[GoatRider]

Those are gorgeous pieces of stone, I hope they turn out all right!

You might want to start out with a more mundane piece to practice on. You can get limestone steppers from most garden stores for a few bucks, once you figure out how to drill and turn those you'll know how to handle these blanks.

And tell me how you do it- I'm an amateur geologist and would love to make a pen like that.

EDIT: Now that I think back on my days of print making with lithography, we used limestone to print with. One step in the preparation process of the stones was to round the edges with a file. As I remember we used standard mill files, and they carved quite easily. I should think standard steel or carbide tools would do the job easily. As long as there isn't any sand (granite) in the stone.

 

[moke]

It should be doable, depending on your lathe and tooling.

One recommendation. Use a cheap (HF) diamond file or a die grinder to round the corners and make the initial rough cuts. Stone is really hard on carbide tools. It can ruin carbide skews, AND it will chip out the inserts for carbide cutters.

Opposed to my original thinking, like petrified wood, I had much better results cutting at higher speeds than lower speeds.

Oh yeah, one other recommendation.....WEAR A FACESHIELD, respirator and a cup!

This must be full contact turning!!