On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 11:27:17 -0600, rasta wrote:

hey all

this group has been a valuable source of info and am hoping those that
have drilled holes in pottery can give me some guidance.

i will be using a pottery (clay) urn laid on its side for a return to
the pond and need to drill a hole to accomodate a 1 inch bulkhead
fitting to tie in the dischage of the filter. don't have the first
idea how to go about doing this.

the pond should be up and running mid-week, so i can start
participating in discussions here and (hopefully) help others with my
experiences.

positive vibes, rasta

thought i would update this for anyone following this thread or comes
across it doing a google search.

the urn i used was of chinese make and the bottom was fairly thick
(compared to mexican made pottery which is thin and not as forgiving).
i used a brace and bit - the bit has a screw type device for an arbor
and the cutting blade resembles a hounds tooth, which can be slid out
along a single bar to a distance of 3" diameter.

i started out very slowly with little pressure, increasing pressure
with additional depth. when the screw arbor made it through the bottom
the hole tended to "waller" out a little, i was about halfway through.
a nice round hole was established at this point and i used an electric
scroll saw with a fine toothed metal blade to finish the cut. what
little roughage was left was taken care of with a rasp.

popped in the 1 inch bulkhead fitting, applied some plumbers putty for
additional sealing, put on the barb fitting to the bulkhead and viola!
a leak free fitting! total time for drilling, etc. around 30 minutes.

hope this helps others in the future.

oh, and the pond has been circualting for two days, with me spiking
the bioforce 1000 with an old filter form one of my tropical tanks.
the fish made it overnight, so i guess i'm up and running now.

later