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breaking up dragon stone, how?

a1Matt

Member
Joined
10 Mar 2008
Messages
2,489
Location
Bromley
I have some dragon stone and want to break it into smaller pieces.

I am unsure what the results will be, or what the best way to break it is.

I really am a bit clueless at this kind of thing so any input appreciated!

One of the main things I am wondering is when you break it do you get more 'swiss cheese holes' or are they only on the outside edges. (I suspect outside edges, as they look like sand erosion, and the sand would not be able to get inside.. just a guess though...)

I also guess I use a hammer and chisel and try to line it up along the existing 'lines' of the stone.
Are there different chisels, which one is best?
 
Re: breaking up dragon stone

that would have been first choice... but I've not seen any small pieces in any of the local LFS for many months now and ran out of patience (I know I could get it online but I am too tight to pay the postage).
 
Re: breaking up dragon stone

I see maybe ring around some places. Or get someone to do it for you :D
 
Re: breaking up dragon stone

I'm gonna smash at least one of the pieces whatever :)
Just be nice to have a bit of guidance before I do.

I know other people on here have done it, so lets hope they read this thread!
 
I smashed up some mini landscape rock. I used hammer and chisel. Health and Safety USEFUL fact no. 1) wear some kind of eye protection :lol: I managed to send a shard of rock flying which luckily just hit me in the face not my eye - but was pretty close.
 
when ever ive smashed rock i covered it with a tea towel (don't use the wife's best) and used a lump hammer and bolster never broken up dragon stone. but a big hammer cant fail :)
 
I tried throwing mine, but I ended up breaking stuff in my parents garage, rather than the rock. So I reverted to a hammer - I covered it with a carrier bag so that all the pieces stayed in the carrier bag rather than flying off everywhere (and probably breaking more stuff! lol).
 
I have broken large pieces of it. Towel and hammer does not fail. You need to wear glasses, the bits that may fly off are pretty sharp.

I have also drilled it, a power drill does a good job of it.
 
I've broken some up before too. But my recommendation is not to hammer and chisel along the veins. This causes the dragon stone to break up into slate-like pieces, which isn't that nice for iwagumi layouts. OK if you wanna line some driftwood or sand/soil borders. I'd recommend bashing it at spots where it'd make lumps of rock rather than slates.

Hard to explain without actually bashing some rocks in front of you, hope you get what I mean.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.
It has been very helpful, and I am feeling confident about smashing up the rock now.

(I may not feed back on the results for some time as I am going to experiment with cement\polystyrene structures for a while before I get to the smashing rock stage.)

flygja said:
I've broken some up before too. But my recommendation is not to hammer and chisel along the veins. This causes the dragon stone to break up into slate-like pieces, which isn't that nice for iwagumi layouts. OK if you wanna line some driftwood or sand/soil borders. I'd recommend bashing it at spots where it'd make lumps of rock rather than slates.

Hard to explain without actually bashing some rocks in front of you, hope you get what I mean.

I get what you mean :D
I had not thought about it that way :idea:

Keep the advice coming people :)
 
a1Matt said:
I am going to experiment with cement\polystyrene structures for a while before I get to the smashing rock stage.)

I would like to take some tips from you on this. I need to build a collumn that is somewhat light.

Do you have any tips on how to mix the cement and polystyrene structure?
 
I have no tips as I've not done it yet!

I will do a test to see if simply slapping cement onto a polystyrene structure will stick.
If that fails then I will research what I could coat the polystyrene with.
Not sure when I will do all this, sometime in the next few months.
 
I will double flygja not to hammer along the veins for the same reason. ;) unless the piece is really really thick.
And yes, you will get the same cheese holes inside...
 
Usually people get blocks of styrofoam, shape them with a hobby knife, then either melt the surface (to get rid of the compressed balls look) or spray it with resin (not sure which). It is then spray-painted to look like rocks. I'm not sure why you'd wanna slap cement on them?

It's not all cheese holes in mine when I smashed up my dragon rock. Some were relatively smooth, greenish grayish in colour. I guess that was the "vein".
 
Thanks for your comments Fly :)

flygja said:
I'm not sure why you'd wanna slap cement on them?

I appreciate this seems a weird thing to do!

There are a few reasons I have for doing this. I am not sure at all that any of them are good reasons, it is all going to be a bit experimental, but this is what I am thinking...

- if I use just cement it is quite heavy and cumbersome. The flat bases of the polystyrene will sit nicely on the floor of the tank, but polystyrene floats and needs glueing down. Hopefully a combo of both will be more manageable to move around the tank and put in situ (and move about at a later date if the urge takes me).

- I like the effect the reefers get with their "DIY live rock" so want to see if I can copy this (they add various things to the cement mix, then wash them out after to get little pockets of holes. they use salt, pens, bits of pasta, grains of rice, all sorts).

- I want to add a covering of sand and pieces of dragon stone in places. I hope to use the cement to 'glue' these in place.

The cement bits will then have moss on them (got about 15 species to home, so will create lots of flat ledges throughout the tank, which is a 160litre, 2 foot cube).

This is all quite ambitious for me, and if I can not get the look I want it may never get to the stage of having water in it! I will enjoy the process regardless though :)

Comments welcome!
 
Dragon stone crumbles very easy, so you must be careful doing this, if you hammer it hard you must end up with dust! lol

Pointy chisel should do the trick to get it to break the way you want.
 
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