Lapidaryforum.net
Let's Rock => Opal => Topic started by: irockhound on March 13, 2019, 03:41:09 PM
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I posted quite a while back about an opal that I was wearing while I was rock collecting and I happened to put sunscreen on which got over the opal taking all of the color out of the opal and turned it cloudy. Well I tried using acetone as a last resort but no luck. I left it in a drawer for about a year or more figuring it was dead. My first carved opal. I was looking for a piece of silver the other day and opened the drawer and it had come back to life! YAY
Pics aren't great, taken with cell phone on the table of our rv. Opal is length wise is about a penny. None of the pictures do the colors justice
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Happy days are here again - especially if it's your first carved opal.
I'm guessing it's Ethiopian. Did it come all the way back to the same color and clarity as before? It's a really nice stone.
Maybe someday I'll try carving one. So far I've just used a handpiece to remove clay mud. Do that to see how I might cut a conventional cab after revealing how much solid opal there is to work with.
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You can see there is still a slight opaque at the very bottom. It is "almost" as clear as it was originally and the color for the most part is back and id say 95%.
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👍 I remember when you posted about killing your opal.
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Seldom do stones improve when you age them, but opals have their own agenda. The interaction between sunscreen and the opal is of interest in itself. It might have been filtering the light, but I'm not so sure sunscreen works that way.
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Sometimes the hydrophane Welo opals don't dry back to their original appearance even if only soaked in water.
Some I cut came back slightly less translucent after drying. Robin cut one that stayed downright milky looking.
Still is a cool pendant. I'm glad it came back for you.
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Glad to see your opal came back to life! :WEEEE:
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I bet the acetone did dissolve the oil and then the stone still had to completely dry out to get the color back. If something like this ever happens to me, I will try acetone if waiting for it to dry out alone doesn’t do the job.
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The idea of acetone scared me but at that point i literally had nothing to lose