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Don’t heat or freeze the stone. Use lots of water while cutting and grinding. |
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Use epoxy as your dopping material; never use dopping wax as the wax and the stone must both be heated and heat puts the opal at risk of cracking/crazing. |
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Don’t abuse the stone — be gentle, grind and polish with a light touch. |
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Be sure that if you’re using silicon carbide wheels that they are round — a “true” wheel. (If the wheel is not round, it will slap the stone as it rotates – abuse!) |
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Be patient … if you’re working and you get stuck and don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. Talk to someone (e.g. dealer) and ask what to.
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Reduce your machinery speed with controls or pulleys. |
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Do not store opal in glycerine. Glycerine wants to remove water from opal. |
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Don’t chase fire! More often than not “what you see is what you get.” |
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The first step is to look at the material as carefully as you can. Look at it inside (candling), outside, wet, dry. |
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The second step is to orient it. Determine what side will be the top, and the bottom, etc. A common question is, “Which side should I put on the top?”. Answer: put the side on the top that is the prettiest to you because it “faces” or windows the best. |
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Shape it and get rid of all the hard, jagged edges. The reason: it is better for the stone and easier to “see” the future gem. |
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Window it (grind a little edge here and there just to see how it will “face up”). |
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Shape it by drawing lines on it to guide your eye. I use a pencil most of the time but I’m also using an indelible pen (Pilot, model SCUF). |
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Grind, sand, and polish. Do it slowly and use a lot of water and you avoid all sources of heat that you can possibly avoid. |
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other KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) rules are: |
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If you’re fearful of the stone just stop what you’re doing take a minute and relax. Otherwise you are almost certain to make a mistake if you’re really feeling uptight about cutting that stone. |
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You need some practice to develop your skill. You should use the low-grade, cheap opal in order to get practice cutting the material. Paradoxically, the lower the grade the harder it is to cut the material into a nice stone in comparison to higher grades but is cheap experience and you’ll get the “feel” of the material. |
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Use the thinnest trim saw blade possible. I would never use anything thicker than a .006 blade (6 thousandths). |
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A thin opal fire band sometimes lends itself to making triplets, doublets, or mosaics. |
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If you have opal that shows fire only from the sides and won’t face-up, flat hishi-type beads are a good cutting alternative. |
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Odd shapes of rough are great for carving or for baroque settings. |
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Tiny chips make beautiful floating necklaces or mosaics. |
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Small pieces cut standard sized stones for replacement of broken stones, and are less expensive than purchasing replacement stones. |
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One creative customer of ours wants opals with irregularities (spiderwebs, holes, wavy fire bars, etc.) for her very creative settings. She is doing very well! |
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You don’t need a faceter to cut a flat surface on the back of stone. What you need is a piece of wet and dry sandpaper and a table. |
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Opal is not unlucky. That is a myth. OPAL IS YOUR PERSONAL RAINBOW!!!!! |