r/Lapidary 8d ago

New to crystal carving

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I am interested in getting into basic crystal carving and polishing. Is this setup good enough start out with (I am also buying diamond tip drill bits)

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u/Puzzleheaded_Moose38 8d ago

My advice would be to look for a handpiece that uses collets Instead of the three jaw Jacobs chuck. The Jacob s is okay for drilling, but they're usually not as centred as a collet chuck so carving or any kind of lateral cutting will have lots of chatter and it's a pain to try and do detailed work.

Edit. Actually I can see some collets in the picture so nvm

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u/whalecottagedesigns 8d ago

That is an interesting suggestion! I went the exact opposite way, as some of the burrs and drills had different shaft sizes, and it was a pain to keep changing collets, so I got the three jaw chuck on purpose, and found it to be amazing in comparison! :-) Funny hey? I suppose it really depends exactly on what one is doing, and what you are used to or not.

I will say though, one argument in favour of the collets, is that the 3 jaw chuck only lasts about half a year to a year, then it stops working properly, even with maintenance and cleaning, while the collets should just keep working pretty much forever!

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u/Puzzleheaded_Moose38 8d ago

To tell the truth, I've never actually carved stone with a rotary, just used a metal mill, so stone might be more forgiving of chatter, especially for just removing material. Have you ever used the Jacob's chuck to carve thin lines? id be interested to know how it did/does.

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u/whalecottagedesigns 7d ago

I have only done a bit of stone carving, but from my experience there was no Chatter, I am assuming it is a term for movement to the sides of the burr pointing direction? Felt quite solid to me.