... of opal ... just one stone ... a very nice day in the neighborhood and I spent most of the day working on the large Olympic Field opal. I had just finished putting a 600 grit polish on the stone when I took this photo and have since put a 1200 grit finish on the stone. The 600 grit finish is like a very light frost coat on the stone and of course the 1200 is a super fine light frost finish ... from here it is to the polish flat lap using a combination of cerium and tin oxides to put the final high gloss polish on the stone and that job will be done before noon tomorrow ... perhaps 45 minutes at the outside to polish it.

 

Opal is one of those wonderful stones that are relatively easy to know when you have a good one ... opal is about color ... the particular colors, the patterns, which colors, percent coverage of the stone with color and the gel color. White opal is called white because the gel color of the stone is white, black opal has a dark to black gel or body color and in each case the play of color in the stone is what makes it great. Black opal which can sell for thousands of dollars per carat is more valuable than white because the colors are more brilliant when they are on a dark color than the same colors displaying on a white background. It takes 5 carats to equal a gram ... it is a unit of weight, so if you have a one carat diamond, sapphire or opal you have a stone that weighs 1/5th of a gram.

 

I weighed the opal after two long sessions on it today and the weight is still about 210 grams, or1050 carats and it will remain above 1000 carats ... probably will only lose another 20 to 30 carats as I polish it.

 

It is an incredibly beautiful gemstone and likely one of the finest large opals in the world. I have been cutting opal for about 40 years now and have cut some very very expensive ones, but never a fine gemstone of this size. The rough was in the ground for millions of years and it came out of the ground in the early 1950's and all its owners have only dreamed on the stone ... I cut it and in the cutting have left more to dream on; on the bottom there is also very fine color, but I left perhaps half a millimeter of potch (opal without play of color) covering a color bar on the bottom ... you can see strong color coming through and yet not all that could be achieved ... I'll leave that for another person in another time :+)

 

Hope your weekend was joyful ... share a smile with someone today and be prepared to receive one too ... maybe a bunch of them

 

Ted

 

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

 

Max Ehrmann

 

 

 

 

Sign up using your mobile phone ... just text 22828 and enter JOINBYTEXT in the message and you can be added to the list.

 

 

Visit my blog                                               My archived Photo's 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please be careful where you click below; several people each month accidently unsubscribe themselves from the list. If you forward this email to a friend please remove the footer section before forwarding it, lest they accidently remove you from the list ... it does happen.  Continually working to make these missives a good way to start or end the day. Thanks, Ted