Drilling Holes In Sea Shells?

How do you cut sea shells?

When drilling seashells it can be difficult to hold the shell in place. I use a lump of my son's plastacine. It's cheap, simple to use and very effective at holding the shell steady while you drill. I was delighted when I read this handy tip in another forum so decided to share. I hope it helps others too !

Where can you find a dremel tool?

Editor's Note: Dremels should be available at any large hardware or home improvement section. They would be located with the drills and sanders.

Follow the good advice in the other postings. I used diamond points to drill. You can find cheap diamond points, both in price and of fair quality from Harborfreight.com. They offer both 1/8 inch (Drimmel size) sets on their own and a set of 3/16 inch (dental lathe size) as part of a little 12VDC small hand "dremmel" type tool. Buy the set with the 3/16inch diamond tip points and toss the cheap little tool they come with if you have a 3/16" (dental) lathe / tool or 3/16" adapter for a real Drimmel tool.

When you drill with diamomd points, ALWAYS use water to cool the points or they will fail quickly. This also keeps the dust down, but wear a good quality filter mask or use a vacuume to catch any dust/spray. A small wax or plastic modeling clay dam around your drilling area helps to hold the water. As stated before, be cool, let the tool do the work, Luke.
REMEMBER, with 110 Volt tools. You do not want to mix water and the tool~~~~ZAP!

Jnelsonmppm

November 25, 20160 found this helpful

Hi Linn. Thanks for the how to on how to make shell jewelry. I haven't cracked that nut yet, but I have made some oyster shell Christma's ornaments. I used a Drexel tool and a diamond bit. I drilled approximately 100 before the bit wore down so much that it wasn't functional.

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I made a small mistake early on...for about fifteen minutes I drilled without mouth and nose protection. It dawned in me that the fine particulates would be irritating to my asthematic lungs, so I found a suitable barrier (a bandana).

I hadn't heard that oyster shell dust was poisonous until reading your article. After a call to poison control, it was determined that any exposure to calcium silicate dust can be irritating to some, but it is not poisonous in the drop dead sense (I'm very happy to report this-haha!). But a dose of prevention...we'll you know the old saying.

Your tutorial is motivating me to take the next step to jewelry designing. In the meanwhile, I'll post Instagram pics at @paintedshovel with the hash tag #oystershellornaments, if you'd like a visual of today's craft project. Thanks again!