Many of you have been asking about maintaining a good polish with opal. In my opinion, the polish on a stone makes or breaks it. The finer the polish, the more you start to bring out all the play of colours as each element is shown in the best possible way. But polishing can be a tricky thing. Get grit on your polishing wheel and you will be forever trying to polish out marks. In this video Justin reveals his tools to ensure he gets a fine polish on his opal every time. From what wheels to use, to how to maintain and clean them, this quick video shows you…
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New from the opal fields
Well what a crazy last few days it’s been here up at the Ridge. The place is full of energy with so many people in town for the meeting on Saturday. It felt just like the old days – at the height of the black opal rush in the 90’s. Despite the crisis of government inaction, the opal scene is also upbeat, with quite a few people finding opal. A couple of new fields have been found or rediscovered with some patches that were missed from the drilling rigs of past. It just goes to show there is still plenty of opal out there to be found and miners around…
Read MoreUsing a Tumbler to clean rough opal
Welcome to our first tip for 2013.We are so looking forward to this year and have some great ideas on rough opal and cut stones to share. We want to help you all grow your opal knowledge and well as your collections so get ready for lots of information to come your way! This week’s tip focuses on rough opal. When you buy or mine opal it can often be covered in residual dirt that is way too hard to remove with normal washing. That is where a tumbler comes in handy. A tumbler is basically a barrel that sits in a small basket and is turned constantly over time.…
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