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[sealdaddy]

I think pawn shops would be a good place to look for rings with bad stones. I don't think very many pawn people do rocks but I have been wrong before.
Jim

Good idea, James

[sealdaddy]

Jim,
How many carats was it before you worked on it...about?

[wampidy]

From what I hear opals are tricky to cut.  Yours has some great fire. 

I was just lucky Helene. I had heard the same thing but I just filed the rough pieces until they were smooth and the flash was from every direction. The broken pieces I got were pretty much the same way and it was impossible to do it wrong.

My biggest problem is finding ways to mount them. I can do metal but I did metal all my life and I ain't doin no more metal. So, it is findings or stick them to another rock which has not gone so well either. I guess, if I don't figure it out I will have the satisfaction of knowing that my son and daughter will have something to fight over. They get along so well as adults it is scary, real scary.
Jim

[wampidy]

Jim,
How many carats was it before you worked on it...about?

You sure know how to ask the tough ones but good question and I do not have an answer. When I first got them until after I finished them my scale was loaned out. When I got it back I weighed this stone but did not write it down, or wrote it down somewhere (you know how that goes haha). So I can't even tell you what it weighs now but if I had to guess the difference I would say I probably filed away 1/3 of the rough stone. The rough stones that I got had some pretty deep pits which I am assuming is common, or always, because they were all that way in places. Some of them still are on the bottoms and a couple have pits on the sides but they are pretty hard to see unless you use a 10X Lupe.
Jim

[hummingbirdstones]

Opals aren't all that tricky.  You just need to cut slow and keep checking the stone to get the best out of it.  They cut easy, so you just need a light touch -- go through the grits like any other stone and polish them with either diamond or cerium.  I prefer cerium on opals.  The one thing to remember is not to grind on one spot too long because they are a tad heat sensitive and will crack if you do that.  Just keep them moving and all will be well.   

[Neural]

Opals aren't all that tricky.  You just need to cut slow and keep checking the stone to get the best out of it.  They cut easy, so you just need a light touch -- go through the grits like any other stone and polish them with either diamond or cerium.  I prefer cerium on opals.  The one thing to remember is not to grind on one spot too long because they are a tad heat sensitive and will crack if you do that.  Just keep them moving and all will be well.   

^^^^ Listen to this lady, she knows her stuff :D

[wampidy]

All of the opal I have worked (10 - 12) small pieces were done with diamond files and sand paper. My main rock polisher uses the counter top polishing type pads so the little opals would fall into the gaps and go sailing. I do have a three wheel unit but the only good wheels I have on it are 100 and 3000 diamond soft wheels. For my first time I was afraid to even get close to anything spinning so I went the very slow way and it worked even though I just went to 5000 sand paper and no polish. I had to go back a step or two many times because if you miss something at one grit using sand paper the next step up is not going to get it out in this life time.

If another opportunity arises I will upgrade my wheel machine and work them wet or try to anyway now that I have my left thumb and index finger healed up. Even though I had them on bamboo skewer sticks I still had to hold them close and tight to keep them from moving around while I was filing or sanding.

I really enjoyed learning and working the opal but I have a feeling most of them will be laying around here for quite a while because the artsy side of my brain has not come up with much in the way of mounting them. They served their purpose though and kept me out of the bars and loonie bins for quite a while. But now I will be walking around in circles trying to find something new to work on. I envy the people that can get into one thing and stay there. My work bench is so cluttered with so many projects that need to be finished that I can not work on it. I have a feeling that my solution will be to try and fit another table in somewhere but I will not know until it happens some day.

Thank you all for the compliments and suggestions. Learning keeps my mind from wandering away.
Jim