Articles opal cutting gemstone orientation and polishing .
Articles opal cutting and these rough stones are worth over $4000.00 and can be resold at $9,000.00 dollars. One reason is that we sell at wholesale prices direct from the mine, that makes it appreciate and there never is two opals the same.
Articles opal cutting first rub the top of the opal color I would recommend good diamond wheels and please use plenty of water to keep the rough cool ,and when you get close to the color please work slow. then I would shape the stone a little bit,you must then putt all your stones on to dobbing sticks ,you must make sure the gemstone is sitting square 90° to the dobbing sticks and let them set firmly over night .
Our opal blog is named Australian opal hunter.
Next day you must work on a finder diamond wheel some people like to make three stages of different grades of grinding wheels before they start polishing. Again there are many techniques some stone cutter also like to use three stages in the polishing process, very important you must not let any contamination interfere with the final polishing stages, example keep your polishing wheels in a dust free environment unto you are ready to use them. You must then take the Opal’s off the sticks and clean them with warm water after a final check of the gems find the scales weight each one, placed them in the individual plastic bag and price them.
More information on our opal blog, named Australian opal hunter.
Articles opal cutting the most important procedure by far is orientating the rough because if this stage is incorrect then you will lose large amount of color and there is nothing you can do to fix the problem, all the polishing and cutting will not put the color back. This procedure takes many years to learn and the only way to learn is to rub down as much low grade inexpensive rough as you can possibly fine . Please remember black opal is different to crystal and boulder stones is different again ,learn your particular type of opal and remember just because you understand one type of Australian stone, if you go out to the Queensland boulder opal towns to buy boulder, you have specialized in orientating and cutting crystal for example then you really need to change your approach and thinking slightly.