⭐ Show Us Your Cut Stones - Before And After Photos

I dont acutualy have a machine either, this was done with a battery drill and a stone polishing wheel :argh:
The machine will come soon I think

Nice one there Digginholes :Y: That piece sure has some fire in it :Y:

Nice opal, they are such a special natural creation :inlove:

Lefty said:

Am plagued by auto correction and fingers too big for my keypad design - good time to apologise for all my crappy gramma and misleading terminology and blame it on others

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You've probably noticed the difference between when I'm posting from the actual computer with physical keyboard and when I'm posting from the tablet with touch screen - auto correct is maddening, as are my fat fingers!

Looking good there mate - sounds like you might get a bit more out of it than you thought?

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The dimensions are set now; it will be a 9.5mm square

Pavilion is complete, so I took it outside to get a happy-snap and feel for the colour.

I think you're going to end up with a nice stone there Wally

Wow what a gorgeous looking stone.

Polished another small piece of opal today and finished off the last one, I think Im addicted now :lol: Im going to need a full set up, using a drill and an old drill bit with glue for a dop stick just isnt Going to cut it

Nice customised tools = a customised stone

Got to be happy with those shiners arty: :rainbow: arty:

Yeah Im pretty happy with how they came out, definitely going to be doing some more.
Your stone is looking great aswell I love seeing what you guys can do with a bit of stone.
erfect:

Nicely done ther Digginholes, I like that blue one as well. Btw, what did you use to dop them with there?

Cheers

Lefty said:

Nicely done ther Digginholes, I like that blue one as well. Btw, what did you use to dop them with there?

Cheers

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Well I probably should have waited for the dopping wax to arrive but I am impatient and found some hot glue gun sticks and used some of that instead its got a black colour to it because I used a cigaret lighter to melt it :lol: , its was all just experimental but I will be getting a better set up before I do any real quality stones, these were out of a cheap eBay rough parcel that was mostly junk

Hey, whatever works at the time I reckon if I ran out of epoxy I could use egg yolk in a pinch - young bloke left it on his plate without rinsing it last night, this morning it had set like araldite! :argh:

Digginholes said:

Lefty said:

Nicely done ther Digginholes, I like that blue one as well. Btw, what did you use to dop them with there?

Cheers

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Well I probably should have waited for the dopping wax to arrive but I am impatient and found some hot glue gun sticks and used some of that instead its got a black colour to it because I used a cigaret lighter to melt it :lol: , its was all just experimental but I will be getting a better set up before I do any real quality stones, these were out of a cheap eBay rough parcel that was mostly junk

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Love your work mate. Been playing around a bit myself with battery tools and home made dopping . Hasnt always been successful but thats all part of the learning curve , and I believe much more satisfying than having all the gear straight up and being shown what to do.
You can produce some really nice stones just by hand but takes a lot of time. Keep at it. :Y:

The hot glue did the job but it did fall off a couple of times and I was a bit worried about putting too much heat on the opal just trying to stick it to the stuff.
Oh the good old egg yoke is tuff stuff, I once had to clean dried up egg off my car after some kids went on a egging spree in my street and it had dried up for a day in hot sun, wow was it hard to get off

Stone has now been transferred onto another dop so the crown can be cut. I mentioned I took it outside to look at the colour, this photo is what I see under my work light, where has the blue gone ???



You can also see a bubbly veil inclusion that was a major contributor to the reduction in size in the rough stone. When I roughed the stone into shape I was hopeful that the next couple of cuts would take it out completely. oop: [brick emoji] [brick emoji] it will be close. :argh:

I have another on another face that that might cause me some grief, but it is a fine whispy one and may only be noticible to me.

Not sure how long it will be before the finished photos but this one should come out nice. Rubyvale, just on 20 carats. The cross is the lighter shade I like to see. When the cross is dark green or olive green, bugger all light gets into the stone and it ends up a bit dark. But this one looks pretty good.

Is it wrong to lick your lips when you look at it :inlove:

No, feel free to lick away :lol:

She shou ld be a really nice stone

WOW, I'd need cpr if I saw that in my sieve!

Wally69 said:

Is it wrong to lick your lips when you look at it :inlove:

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Is it wrong to have a bit of a fondle