Help! I broke a drill bit in a very large South Sea pearl!
- Thread starter debbod
- Start date
pattye
Pearl Scholar
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2005
- Messages
- 11,461
Debbod, welcome, darn, that's really sad. I hope someone will have a suggestion. (I'm just learning to drill.) Just curious, what kind of drill set up do you have? What size bit were you using? Is the end right at the surface, or recessed? Were you wanting a half drill or full drilled hole? What were you planning to do with the pearl?
pearlescence
purveyor of pearls UK/EU
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2007
- Messages
- 4,108
Hi. Can you give much more precise details please.
What size drill bit and what type of drill
Is the end protruding
First or second half of a full drill or half drill
How are you planning to set the pearl.
Is it very valuable
What have you tried so far
Why do you think the bit broke
What size drill bit and what type of drill
Is the end protruding
First or second half of a full drill or half drill
How are you planning to set the pearl.
Is it very valuable
What have you tried so far
Why do you think the bit broke
dmj
pppp pearl
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2011
- Messages
- 443
when a drill is really stuck and you used a normal 0,6 0,8 or 1 mm drill you can try a gemstone hollow dril ( copper with diamond coating hollow drill ) and try to drill over the pearl drill so the diamond copper hollow drills because these won't break easy and can go true the metal of the old drill and if not you can dril on top of it so it gets stuck in the diamond hollow part of the drill and then pull it out
most lapidary supply stores will sell a type of these drills
we also noticed because the breaking point is often just under the edge of the drill hole that when you could take a microscope ( we use them for optical gem setting ) that you can clearly see how the drill goes and with a little metal cleaner you can try to get it back up.
if the drill is on the edge and you have excess to a laser you could put a little 0,5 mm wire on top of the drill shoot once with a laser so its stuck and pull it out
we have some thousand pearls to drill every year and we break around 5 drills in pearls in that period and maybe only once a year a pearl can't be safed but most of the time one of these options will work
most lapidary supply stores will sell a type of these drills
we also noticed because the breaking point is often just under the edge of the drill hole that when you could take a microscope ( we use them for optical gem setting ) that you can clearly see how the drill goes and with a little metal cleaner you can try to get it back up.
if the drill is on the edge and you have excess to a laser you could put a little 0,5 mm wire on top of the drill shoot once with a laser so its stuck and pull it out
we have some thousand pearls to drill every year and we break around 5 drills in pearls in that period and maybe only once a year a pearl can't be safed but most of the time one of these options will work
