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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Lapidary
Anyone treated fairy opal before?
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<blockquote data-quote="Keen Ken" data-source="post: 314392" data-attributes="member: 211"><p>Hi Doug, </p><p>I did experiment with sandstone matrix opal placing it in "Spirit Stain" (ebony in colour) with mixed results. It did substantially darken the sandstone but having bigger fish to fry at the time I left it at that. Our material was rather soft and needed stabilising with resin.</p><p>I used to pay a guy to carbonise and stabilise preshaped pieces at a cost of 50cents per gram for each process ($1 per gram for both processes).</p><p>Some came out really nice but most was just pin fire green, blue or pink predominantly. There was a small percentage that had lovely blocky patterns of intense green.</p><p></p><p>Not including my time sorting, sawing shaping and finishing it was costing about $10 per piece, so to make it worth while we needed to sell each piece for around $25 to $40 to be able to make any money. Not a big seller.</p><p></p><p>Most pieces were about 20mm x 15 mm x 5mm thick.</p><p></p><p>This was a by product when mining for pipe opal, when times are tough you will try anything to make an income.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Keen Ken, post: 314392, member: 211"] Hi Doug, I did experiment with sandstone matrix opal placing it in "Spirit Stain" (ebony in colour) with mixed results. It did substantially darken the sandstone but having bigger fish to fry at the time I left it at that. Our material was rather soft and needed stabilising with resin. I used to pay a guy to carbonise and stabilise preshaped pieces at a cost of 50cents per gram for each process ($1 per gram for both processes). Some came out really nice but most was just pin fire green, blue or pink predominantly. There was a small percentage that had lovely blocky patterns of intense green. Not including my time sorting, sawing shaping and finishing it was costing about $10 per piece, so to make it worth while we needed to sell each piece for around $25 to $40 to be able to make any money. Not a big seller. Most pieces were about 20mm x 15 mm x 5mm thick. This was a by product when mining for pipe opal, when times are tough you will try anything to make an income. [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Lapidary
Anyone treated fairy opal before?
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