Opal carving tools

Animal designs are not easy to do and most opal carvings with animals are made in Asia due to labour costs to make design. Opal Indian head carvings are very popular. Boulder opal with good colour ironstone with broad section of colourful opal is best but if starting just ironstone is good to you perfect the drilling and polishing of this design. You do require full range all lapidary drills from diamond tipped pointed drills to round burrs and for polishing you also require polishing wheels a s rubber disks to wool polishing tips.

Also note the feathers require delicate work and are hardest part of this Indian head carving a s if not polished the result is burred look and you do need to put lot effort into carving and polished the feathers on this design. Standard saw blades and polishing wheels are required. Most opal cutters already have this equipment so they can rub or slice the opal into a rub ready for carving and polishing. Also check that your air extraction works well when carving opal especially when drilling the opal colours.

Once you have picked out your opals that you wish to carve, you will need the following equipment:. It is important that you use both hands to hold the opal for carving.

Coarse drills are only required on carving out ironstone but when you work with the opal best not to use under grit as should be ideal for more delicate work with drills. Sanding disks -These are required to help mark out your carving design and can even be used to cut small piece off your opal.

Rubber tipped drills -These are flexible tips made of rubber impregnated with diamonds and you need following grits: 80,,, Polishing pads -It is very important to have large variety of polishing pads or sand paper as if you are working with boulder the ironstone it is soft and will require a lot more work than the opal so it is important to have high level of even polish. Final polish -Wool tipped drills are best for your final polish with polishing powder compound to give high polish.

If you have a dremel drill, you can set it up to be fixed by clamping onto your bench. It needs to be housed also as if you are working the rub. The boulder opal can be very messy. Image is of foam fruit or vegetable box cased around drill. This drill is just standard electric motor with good water source and placed in foam box. An old dentist drill is also ideal, as it leaves both hands to hold and work the opal for carving. The biggest mistake new carvers make is trying to hold dremel drill and carve and give up as the finish is not satisfactory.

Gemmarum Lapidator srl. EU - Countries. United Kingdom. North America. Abrasive Technology, Inc. Diamond wheels Carving tools Diamond saw blades. Barranca Diamond. Cabbing machines Lapidary saws Diamond and soft wheels Lapidary supplies. Cabbing machines Diamond and soft wheels Lapidary supplies. Covington Engineering. Cabbing machines Diamond, soft and polishing wheels Tumblers Saws and saw blades Carving supplies Flat laps Lapidary supplies Glass supplies.

Diamond Pacific. Cabbing machines Diamond, soft and polishing wheels Tumblers Saws and saw blades Carving supplies Lapidary supplies. Highland Park Lapidary Co. Cabbing machines Diamond, soft and polishing wheels Tumblers Saws and saw blades Carving supplies Flat laps Lapidary supplies. Inspect your work well with magnification between steps, to be sure that scratches from previous Crates wheels have been removed.

Another gotcha with Cratex wheels is they produce a lot of heat, so if you are cutting dry, check your work often for heat build up and keep the speed down. Dust away any abrasive from the Cratex wheels and wipe down your workbench with a wet cloth or paper towel to remove all debris.

Wash your hands and your work! Then switch to grit Nova points which should clean up your work nicely, leaving a slight sheen on the carving to better show you where you still need to concentrate your carving and smoothing efforts.

Continue using progressively finer stages of Nova points until you reach the pre-polish stage. Thanks to Phil Alderslade in Tasmania for this tip! Now begin pre-polishing with grit diamond on hard felt points. I prefer bullet shaped points available from most lapidary supplies or Lasco Diamond Products.

A note of caution: Some of the felt buffs have metal rivets exposed on the tops. If this metal should come in contact with your opal it will deeply scratch your work and make you very sad-beware!! Continue on with 3, grit diamond compound on felt buffs, then onto 14, diamond and then to 50, for a high polish.

As I said earlier, you may try , diamond for the ultra super high gloss polish. OK, this is the moment of truth. Put on your Optivisor or equivalent and relying on good lighting, closely inspect your work. At this point scratches will stand out on the highly polished surface. You may need to repeat a few steps using diamond grit to remove scratches or even to the Cratex wheels.

This is pretty much routine and part of the process, because it is very difficult to see scratches until you reach this stage. At least that is what I have been telling myself all these years! After spending a day cutting gem grade opals I can still see the beautiful multi-colored flashes of fire when I close my eyes at night. These delightful stones are unknown millennium in the making. If we can find a way to gently transform more of this precious stone into finished works of beauty, instead of dust in the bottom of a grinder pan, it is surely time not wasted.

I just hate to throw away perfectly good diamond sanding belts with no useable diamond abrasive remaining. The belt integrity seems fine but the diamond abrasive is gone. With diamond powder so inexpensive, I thought with a little ingenuity, I could make a good working belt out of an old worn out belt.

And I did! I believe this procedure would work for Nova wheels as well. I clean the belt thoroughly with acetone. Read the warnings on the acetone can, it is dangerous stuff. The epoxy hardens without being brittle and mixes well with the diamond powder. I use the small plastic measuring cups for liquid medication doses that are available in drug stores, for measuring and mixing. Mix 1teaspoonful equal amounts of hardener and resin in the small cup. Then dump in a 5 carat vial of the appropriate grade of diamond powder and mix thoroughly again.

This is not 5 Minute Epoxy, so you have plenty of time to mix. Mixing is very important here as small lumps of abrasive will lower the effective grit of your abrasive and cause the finer abrasive grades to cause scratches. Apply the epoxy-diamond mixture to the belt smoothly using the disposable acid flux brushes pictured below.

Apply in a thin coat so there are no lumps or thick areas. The epoxy sets up in one hour hardens in 8 hrs so you must keep rotating the belt every few minutes to keep mixture from running on the belt.

One teaspoon and 5 carats diamond is enough for in X 2in belt. I usually have a little left over. Ten carats is about right for a 8in X 3in belt. I recently finished a grit belt and it cuts faster than a new belt just out of the box. I have an older grit diamond-sanding belt, that I refurbished 2 years ago, and it seems as though it will never wear out.

NOTE: Even if a thick coat is applied uniformly, it tends to run, giving you a bumpy belt though they are certainly still useable, I have a bumpy belt that has been used for several years and is finally beginning to smooth out as the diamond wears off. The opals in this new deposit, discovered in , are nodule-like stones in an unusual variety: where some stones resemble top Mexican fire opal with excellent play-of-color, others resemble subtle dream-like stones from Brazil and many resemble bright crystal opal from the Andamooka opal field of South Australia.

Hydrophane opal quickly absorbs water and the opals base color appearance changes, becoming very clear. The play-of-color, though not entirely disappearing, fades out. But luckily this is only a temporary problem, and in most cases, when the opal is allowed to air-dry for days, almost like magic, the body color and play-of-color return to normal.

Most of this opal becomes white when going through its drying transition, but it too returns to its normal crystal or semi-crystal state, although it may take a few days longer to become clear again and for the play-of-color brightness to return. Let the stone dry overnight, then coat the non-waterproof glue with a coating of clear fingernail polish to make it waterproof. I avoid using dopping wax: especially if the opal has been exposed to and has absorbed water.

Be aware that this material can be VERY heat sensitive. And mostly I use a grit grinding wheel as it lessens the chance of chipping or cracking. Opal in general is relatively soft 5. I like to be very stingy with cooling water used on the wheels…no water is preferred until all the matrix is removed. If only enough water is used to keep the wheels slightly wet and the dust down, it should be sufficient and prevent the stones from quickly absorbing water and possibly crack and the finished stone will dry quicker.

I know this is like lapidary blasphemy but I prefer to grind and sand dry. It seems as though when the Welo opals absorb water they crack. Once the stone has been oriented, roughed out and the back of the stone flattened on a flat-lap, I go to my normal method of opal cutting using a or grit belt, on an expanding drum for final shaping of the stone.

And grit will remove any leftover flat spots and coarse scratches-then onto grit and grit with a final polish of 14K diamond. Finally, remove the fingernail polish coating by swirling in a jar with acetone in it for about 20 seconds careful acetone is VERY flammable.

Soak in a glass of water for hours and the stone should fall off of the dop stick. If not let the stone soak overnight. At times these stones seem to crack for no apparent reason, during the cutting process. To prevent cracking some customers have suggested soaking rough stones, destined to be fashioned, overnight in water. I believe the jury is still out, but I tend to the school of less water rather than more.

If you have had good luck with either method or something different please share this with me and I will in turn share it with others-please e-mail vsopals gmail. During a recent opal cutting class we experimented by completely dry cutting these stones. We did 5 cabochons completely dry using 14K diamond paste on canvas for a polish and 5 wet. Of the wet stones 3 of 5 cracked after wetting. All of the dry cut stones finished up with no cracks.

In the next class the following month we tried to narrow this down a bit and only roughed grit grinding through grit sanding the stones dry frequently using a dry trim saw to cut bits and pieces off instead of using the grinder and avoiding clouds of dust. We did use water sparingly for the grit and grit sanding through polish steps with good results…no cracking.

Dry cutting is very dusty, but this limited experiment showed the effectiveness of dry cutting. I am now wondering if some of these stone have much amplified hydrophane properties which cause them to absorb more water than the stones silica structure can hold and thus crack. Removing the matrix pockets first with carving equipment may cut down on cracking and allow one to cut cabochons with water??

Perhaps the matrix in the pockets absorbs water, expanding faster than opal, and causes cracking. Please let me know how your stones turn out and if dry cutting works for you. Steve or vsopals gmail. I have been cutting the Welo opals dry ever since with huge success.