Drilling Holes with a Pillar Drill

Today's Technique

Making Holes in Silver!!

page 92

Materials

Sterling Silver Sheet

Automatic Center Punch

Pillar Drill (I used my flex shaft drill...)

Ball Burr

Bench Pin

Safety Glasses

Steps to Success

1. Create little indentations with your center punch where you would like to drill your holes.

2. Pillar Drill: Center the sheet under the drill bit - so that the drill bit is just over the center punch marks

    Flex-Shaft: Hold your drill bit over an indentation

For both, lower/press the drill bit into the sterling sheet slowly, making sure not to over heat the piece. Also, do not forget to put a bit of Bur-Life on your sheet. I like to put a drop of liquid Bur-Life on the sheet and spread it around with my finger - this seems sufficient for both the drilling and the burring steps in this technique.

3. With a ball burr in your flex shaft,  clean any bits of silver from your freshly drilled holes. As you can see from the picture, I also used the ball burr to create decorative effects around each hole. I first created a small indentation with my center punch and then placed the ball burr and drilled to half way.

Hang onto this sheet because next week we are going to use it to explore RETICULATION!! 

More playtime with fire!!! 

See you then - I hope you enjoyed this one!

art is sexy,

visit my website!