Opal rings handmade jewelry direct from Australian Heritage mine.

Opal rings handmade custom jewelry site and being built next door to my opal mine is an Australian State museum which the capital is Sydney. Named the Australian opal Centre at the 3 mile road just out of town at Lightning Ridge, 3 mile is known internationally as having the best quality Australia opal and International deposit ever discovered. A very fitting place for the museum the location was heavily worked with the biggest black opal open cut mine in the world left behind as proof, today this mining location of mine is Heritage listed, so guys have a look for yourself on the official Australian State museum site.Official Australian State Museum next to Graham’s Heritage mine click here to view.

Opal rings handmade custom rings with Australian opals in the design jewelry, all at wholesale prices direct from the miner . Free of charge when purchasing one stone or one opal ring handmade and all custom jewelry design to fit your purchase free delivery and free insurance. Its the beauty of this gem that makes it appreciate and there never is two identical opals the same. At this stage no promotions available but please contact and ask about future discounted jewelry.

Opal mining at the best quality location in the world Lightning Ridge Australia at the famous location 3 mile “Known to have produced the finest and best quality opal gemstones” unfortunately no longer commercially viable exhausted. Lightning Ridge is no longer producing and there has never been another rush in the surrounding areas that can match lightning Ridge. The resource is very scarce these days and most opals are coming from Ethiopia, but no where near the quality of the Australian opals. I was the last guy who opened cut at the now heritage listed most famous place the 3 mile, you can view the last gemstones found  at this site in the jewelry and opal rings handmade products and solid opal and black opal gemstone collection.

This famous mining fields also discovered in modern times the biggest uncut black opal,found next-door to my open cut mine and is documented in the Guinness book of records, gemstone is over 2000 carats and was named the Halley’s comet. There was a few more large gem multicolor stones discovered with the Halley’s comet, there all so was a number of beautiful high-quality gem reds and they were worth millions of dollars the claim was owned by Terry Barclay .

Famous Guinness book opal our jeweler outsources the stones for the opal rings from this 3 mile mine, photograph is next door to the Australian opal center.

The first British and European prospectors pioneers and explores that heard about the rare multicolor opal, that sparkled dazzling red fire from rocks and stones,explores travelled to these locations and started the first opal mining fields. Hard men it was all blood sweat and tears in the semi-arid deserts no fresh water most of the year, stinking hot summers and cold winters all backbreaking work by hand.

 Opal rings handmade jewelry .

Australian black opals with certificate would make excellent opal rings handmade by A grade Goldsmith .

Wow no machinery candle lighting shovels and picks and a hand held windless to wind up a bucket of clay from the bottom of the shaft. A cable was connected to the bucket back to the handheld windless that had to be rotated 360° many times by manpower to allow the bucket to come to the surface under intense heat.

The second generation of prospectors pioneers was quite a change from the first explores, as small petrol generators allow for good bright lighting of the face where air compressors on the surface of the claim allowed the second generation of opal miners at Lightning Ridge to use jackhammers to break down the clay a lot easier and remove the clay . Which was then brought to the surface by hoists driven by small engines this truly was the start of eliminating a lot of the backbreaking work the previous miners undertook .
Washing the opal clay fossil fuel engines were used to spin a mesh basket where artesian water pumped up 1 mile from the hot artesian underground spring, pumped into the small agitator and continuously tumble. The clay will turn into silt and wash out of the fine mesh screen allowing only solids opal and seam to be examined.

Graham Black opal open cut mining the last famous Australian opal Heritage mine.

Third-generation full time professional opal miners 100% mechanized from about 1970 ,there were large 3 feet drills hydraulically mounted on trucks drilling circular shafts, from the back of high powered diesel driven dual axle vehicles drills were mounted and hydraulically lifted to allow for extensive and more economical exploration . No longer hand digging shafts from the surface to the opal or using jackhammers like the second generation of miners.
There was much smaller drills for test core samples prospecting looking for trace and color, drills slowly rotated through the clay and when the drill was reversed clay stuck to the drills and is brought to the surface for viewing by the mining primary producers .

 Opal rings handmade jewelry .

Mechanized 3 foot drilling took over the back breaking hand digging rectangle opals shafts. Conventional opal drives tunnels underground method is still the accepted mining method today . The only difference today is underground mining is mechanised where the lighting and power is outsourced usually from diesel generators, the underground hydraulic powerful digger’s are driven by large diesel engines .

Mr Graham Black opal mining Australian State Heritage mine.

The power plant and blowers engines are all situated on trucks on the surface in the semi-arid deserts of Australia.
Early explores rarely ever use water for washing and processing the clay, often stockpiling clay on the lease and dry tumbling using mesh or handheld tumbler.

Modern gem hunters remove large concrete mixers off the back of a truck and permanently have them mounted on a washing lease. Trucks of all dimensions go back and forward from the lease to the washing plant to have the clay washed by artesian water which has been cool down and stalled in dams, a small 5 hp petrol pump delivers large amounts of water to the mixer which continuously tumbles the clay, turning into silt then washing out of the fine mesh screens that have been cut and installed into the sides of the mixer, allowing only solids and seam to be examined for color. This generation also started the method of open cut mining the old rich diggings that was now to dangerous to opal mine underground. You would never find this quality heritage opal rings handmade browsing the internet or browsing personally in jewelry boutiques stores any more .

Opal Rings Handmade Copyright ©