how to crush stone for inlay

First a little warning.. I have not tried this.

Buy a large piece of iron pipe and an end cap to use as a container. Get a send piece of pipe and with end caps that will fit inside the larger piece. I don't know if close fit or very small fit would be best. Use caps on both ends of the smaller pipe. Drop the lapus nuggets into the large piece and use the smaller to crush using a hammer if needed.

Stuart Johns>I have some lapus nugets that I would like to break up and use in a >couple projects. >

While I was in Montana, I bought a cast iron mortise and pestile that prospectors use. It works great for crushing hard stuff. I then sift it. Nashville, Ga.

vise?

The only problem is that short of taking it out onto the sidewalk and hitting it with a sledge hammer the stuff will not break.

Any suggestions?

First a warning - best to do this indoors so the neighbors don't get worried about seeing a guy stuffing material into a capped pipe.

What you have in effect is a mortar and pestle similar to the type used in Africa, rather than the more familiar-looking millstone variety.

Take it out onto the sidewalk and hit it with a sledge hammer. Well, onto an anvil would probably be a bit neater, and maybe put it inside a heavy plastic bag. Oh, and you'll have to change the bag frequently, but it's a lot less wasteful than the sidewalk. I haven't tried it with lapis lazuli but I've done it to plenty of turquoise.

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Hi Bill

It is time consuming but if you position your stones in a good mechanic's vise one by one I think you should be able to crush them, then again maybe you have to find someone from the railway co. and have him ride the locomotive over them (G)

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

william kossack wrote:

This is basically the approach I have tried. I even had the neighbors teenaged son have a go with a 10 pound sledge and all that happend was that he bent the smaller pipe. All we got was a couple chips off the stone.

I've d> First a little warning.. I have not tried this.

================================ For harder stones, this may or may not work. If you can find a piece of hardened steel, like a shock absorber rod or a king pin from an old auto front end, you can grind a mild dome on one end and pound the other end with the hammer. The pipe end you're using may also be too soft for hard stones. If it shows signs of the stone digging in, a piece of tool steel (like you'd make a scraper from) cut to fit inside the pipe cap may work. Once you get past about 7 on the 1- 10 Moh hardness scale used for grading stones (1= talc, 10=diamond, carbide is around 8), crushing becomes pretty difficult, unless there are fault lines in the stones. Good luck.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

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I tried the steel pipe approach. Although it crushed the stone, the small fragments were mixed with steel dust.

A simpler method is to buy the crushed stone from Bill Baumbeck at Arizona Silhouttes.I did and the crushed turquoise, malachite, lapis, iron pyrites etc work well as inlays. Larry Hand Turned Pens at

Of course a magnet would take care of that, handily.

A night in the freezer followed by a fast plunge into boiling water ought to set up some fracture lines, then you should be able to crush them fairly easily? Or try crushing them immediately after they come from the freezer, they should be fairly 'brittle' then. Just a thought......

bill otten