Australian Opal

Nov 24 2017Refurbishing Used Diamond Belts Or Soft Diamond Sanding Wheels

I just hate to throw away perfectly good diamond sanding belts when the abrasive is worn out.  The belt integrity seems fine but the diamond abrasive is gone.  With diamond powder so unbelievably inexpensive on eBay, I thought that with… more

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Nov 21 2017Back To The Basics Of Opal Cutting: Cutting Rough Australian Opal Or Rough Ethiopian Opal

Recently I was polishing an opal cabochon and the finished product just wasn’t coming out right. The polish looked hazy with the naked eye and under 2X Optivisor magnification there were small flat spots and a few deep, smoothed out… more

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Nov 21 2017Opal Doublet Cutting

For what it’s worth here is a procedure I use to make Australian and Welo opal doublets. I previously had used black jade from the Australian Cowell deposit but haven’t been able to find another good inexpensive source.  Color-Wright.com was… more

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Ethiopian Opal

Apr 29 2014Wet Cutting vs. Dry Cutting

During a recent opal cutting class we experimented by completely dry cutting these stones. We did 5 cabochons completely dry (using diamond paste on canvas for a polish) and 5 wet. Of the wet stones 3 of 5 cracked after… more

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Opal Treatments

May 11 2017Welo Opal & Dopping Glues

BTW, I meant to send you a couple of tips on how best to use that Beacon 527 glue I told you about: I gently mash a roll of modeling clay onto my workbench, and then (balancing carefully) use just… more

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