Drill press (finally)

Hey Maren,

I completely forgot what a bit*h that thing was to put together. I made my husband do it! bawahahahahahaha Don't forget about widgetsupply.com for your dremel tools. I've been to the dremel web site - which sometimes does not work correctly, pages wont load, etc - and widgetsupply is a much cheaper place to buy stuff for your dremel and surprising how much they do carry.

I see that you will shortly become a master hole driller. *grin* Have fun with your new toy!!

Oh, and I almost forgot... you always talk about drilling into these seeds, pods, and all kinds of flora. You have any pics of these? I really have no idea what they look like. What do you use them for once you have drilled holes? Are you stringing them for jewelry??

Sterling

"Maren at google" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@d4g2000prg.googlegroups.com... : Hi all, : : finally got myself a Dremel drill press today and wanted to report on : it. : I have only used it for may be 1/2 hour yet, but, I'm glad I did this : and I : wish I had done it earlier. That is, once I got it put together, which : wasn't : at all trivial (and I have some experience reading technical : documentation). : : So, once I got the thing put together it worked perfectly and I may : actually : make more than below minimum wage in the drilling part of my drilled : seeds. I only drilled a few Royal Poinciana seeds so far, but now the : marking takes longer than the drilling. I feel like I could actually : drill : seabeans and kukui nuts now (real kukui nuts, not the tumbled beyond : recognition ones you can buy in stores and on Ebay). As those can take : larger holes I may find long enough drill bits too (my 1/16" ones : won't go : all the way through). : : Aloha, : Maren : HiloBeads: Beads - Beading Supplies - Hand-made Jewelry :

Had forgotten about that one, but once I got my collet set (overpriced from Ace Hardware) all I'm buying at the moment is drill bits, and Home Depot as well as Sears has 1/16" drill bits without charging an arm and a leg.

I found yesterday that it took me longer to mark the seeds for double drilling than to drill the holes, and so while I was out and about doing something else today (took the week off, it's Spring Break, at the University too, meaning DH doesn't have to teach this week) decided to try to drill by lines on the piece of wood that I put under the seeds and double drilled

40 in 20 minutes ... (and then another batch of that size later). But, I didn't say I didn't still have numb finger tips. And I haven't tried drilling mgambo seeds with the drill press yet, I drilled the ones I drilled so far free hand. (And all those go on vacation with me tomorrow, just a few days, but I may actually have time to make something. I have all these patterns in my head that I want to make).

You can find 'em here (I still keep all but the main HiloBeads pages at work:

and some examples of what I'm doing with the Royal Poinciana seeds: Earrings and memory wire bracelet with Swarovski crystals: Bracelet with brown job's tears: (yes, this is one line :-( . That one is in the blog too.) I only made on pair of earrings with mgambo seeds so far, and I already gave that away without taking a picture first.

Thanks for asking :-)

Maren HiloBeads: Beads - Beading Supplies - Hand-made Jewelry

Blog at:

I'm not very good with tools, so I don't get nearly as much use from my Dremel as I should. I got mine for Christmas from my mother after commenting that power tools were a better Christmas gift for a new home owner (log cabin) than "traditional" gifts like clothes or jewelry. Just the Dremel and flex shaft, no drill press.

I too got my (generic) drill bits at the hardware store. I got a high quality carbide drill bit. I like the good stuff because I'm lazy and hate to have to replace things.

Glad it's making things easier.

Tina

Teehee ... DH is very good at getting me useful stuff for Christmas. I wish I knew where I put that mini vise grip ...

Haven't seen those here. Do you have a brand name for them?

Does it ever ... with distance from the drill for a few days I figured out that the best thing to hold mgambo seeds for drilling is probably a wooden clothes peg (we got those, and in this climate we don't normally use them for laundry), and it works like a charm. I drilled

57 of those in 45 minutes, and with my not marking the Royal Poinciana seeds anymore (I marked the piece of wood I drill on) I got 155 holes drilled in a bit over an hour - the Royal Poinciana seeds are much easier to drill -, all told well over 2 holes per minute.

If you use the Dremel a lot at some point, and for small things, get that drill press. It's a bear to put together (I didn't get DH to put it together like Sterling did, he only would have said something like "you're the engineer here" .), but it saves so much time and the energy to hold the drill up. And you can use your dominant hand (I''m left handed) to hold what you're drilling rather than holding the drill.

Got some neat new seeds last week, Manila Tamarind (which isn't related to tamarind at all), but I haven't tried to drill those yet.

Maren

If it's in your way, you just send it on over here... :)

Cheers, Carla