Todd Robbins
Well-Known Member
I have a friend who is a recreational diver who looks for sellable artifacts, like megalodon teeth and Civil War relics, in our local waters. He has given me several old bones that look pretty similar to some Stellar Sea Cow rib bone I bought a few years ago, except that they are "petrified," for the lack of a better term. These things are pretty heavy, and hard! They also are very brittle on the corners of the ends, and they are very inconsistent from piece to piece, as far as color and weight are concerned. Most polish out as dark brown to black. I cut the ends of a few of them square with a masonry blade on an angle grinder and polished them up a little with on old zirconium belt followed by various AO and structured abrasives. They generally have a rough oval cross section and very little signs of marrow. I'd love to use these things as handle material (for the longer sections) and spacers (for the shorter ones), but I'm not sure how to drill it without ruining it. The stuff works like I would imagine a medium hardness stone would work. Does anyone have any relevant experience with similar material, or have any idea what I need to do to be able to drill this stuff, because I sure don't. Help, please!
