Pete Snell wrote:
On 3/13/2011 8:48 AM, David Billington wrote:
Karl Townsend wrote:
Milady needs me for my shop skills. Don't happen that often.

She has old canning jars. The type with a glass lid and a little wire
arrangement to pull the glass lid tight. She wants to put small lights
inside and needs a hole drilled.
snip
The old way would be to use some copper or brass tube with an OD the
size of the hole you want. Make a dam round the hole with plasticene and
add some abrasive like valve grinding paste and a bit of water or oil,
Hold the tube in a drill press running at a slow speed and repeatadly
apply pressure and lift. The abrasive imbeds in the softer tube material
like a lap and grinds through the glass.

I did the exact same job a few years back, and used the technique
David describes. It works well, but you have to be patient. It was about
10 minutes of 'drilling' for each hole if I recall correctly.

FWIW, I read this exact thing some decades ago. Haven't tried it,
because I haven't had a need to drill holes in glass, but it's nice
to know it works. :-)

Cheers!
Rich