Turning granite

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bgibb42

bgibb42

Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
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642
Location
Hull, GA
Has anyone ever turned something out of granite? Or have any ideas about how one would go about turning something out of granite?
 
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Arv

I haven't turned granite but I have turned alabaster. Need to be very careful on alabaster but the Pen turned out fantastic. Made a Gentlemen's pen out of it and sold it for $140.
 
Never turned granite, but have turned several soapstone pens that have a very similar look when finished. PM me if interested, I have about 12 or so blanks left.
 
I read an article before about granite worktops emitting radiation and families had to get them removed from their home. Think it was certain types of granite, not sure, but it'd be enough to put me off
 
Turning granite will be SIGNIFICANTLY harder than soapstone or alabaster. Granite is one of the hardest natural materials out there and has to be cut with diamond saw blades. I am sure it can be done but would be MUCH more work than I would be willing to do.
 
Some one a few years ago was making pens from granite, trying to sell them for close to $1000 if I remember right. Wasn't someone from anyone of the groups. Must have been 10+ years ago. I would think one would need a grinder mounted on the lathe to do it best, with water on the wheel.
 
Paul in OKC said:
Some one a few years ago was making pens from granite, trying to sell them for close to $1000 if I remember right. Wasn't someone from anyone of the groups. Must have been 10+ years ago. I would think one would need a grinder mounted on the lathe to do it best, with water on the wheel.
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Paul, can you imagine how much damage that would do to the ways, I hate even using a tool post grinder on a lathe. particularly one of my own!!!
 
bitshird said:
Paul, can you imagine how much damage that would do to the ways, I hate even using a tool post grinder on a lathe. particularly one of my own!!!
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Agreed. I worked at a shop where I had to do it regularly on some very close tolerance parts. Covered them up best I could when grinding, but that dust gets everywhere. The other thing is that they don't make carbide tipped drills in all the sizes we need for pens! They do make solid carbide drills in most of them though. Not cheap, either. You know, we do have an od grinder in the cobwebs at our shop. Hmmmmm.........nope, got enough projects for now.
 
With granite you would definitely need to use diamond cutters and a solid flow of water. A metal lathe would be the optimum tool to use because you can mount a rotary cutter and have the machine hold it steady as the cutter moves across the blank. It would take forever to turn that to size. Dust would not be a problem, because all the dust would be liquid. Drilling to a pen kit size would be an issue, not only for the diameter of hole but the length as well. You would have to come up with a comfortable size and then make a custom kit to fit the blanks. There's too many downsides. Granite is super duper hard. Only thing harder than granite is diamond. You will have to take the machine outside so as to avoid a flood..because you will need to be running a hose on that. You will need several cutters. You will need to not drop the pen when it is finished!!! There is a trade off with hardness and that's called brittleness. To make a real granite pen is a waste of time and effort. Unless you have some rich dude with a down payment..I wouldn't bother.
 
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