Hello and welcome to my channel. I'm an Australian gem cutter and in this video you will see me facet Fire Opal from Oregon. Thank you for watching. / vintagetime • Fire Opal faceting Liv...
Looks similar to the fire opal found on the aussie opal hunters show. I just saw a clip of them unearthing some yesterday and thanks to you cliff (and your subscriber) I get to see what it would be like cut. 🙏
Honeycomb design is great choice, bravo Cliff . New camera with your know-how and skills make this video look like very very professional level . BRAVO !
Beautiful reveal and wonderful cut, Cliff! 👍🏼 We were traveling a couple of days ago, and it was quite a treat to see this nice piece of Fire Opal come off your machine. Thanks much my friend. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thanks John. Oregon has some fine fire opal. There seems to be more diversity in North and South America when it come to gems that can be faceted. Australia has plenty of gems, but so much of it is not good enough to facet. Cheers
Blu Tack is actually butyl rubber uncured with some other fillers. It's a very inert rubber that's even in some chewing gum like bubblicious. It's what allow you to blow big bubbles.
Great tip with the blue tack! I actually had this problem and will need to recut a gem that I bungled as a result of trying to remove glue after cutting
It's quite lovely despite being so annoying to work with. It has a similar coloration to some of the more yellow topaz or to citrine, but the luster is different, so it seems to glow like a piece of amber. Definitely an interesting, if complicated, cut for such a small, soft gem.
Stunning stone Cliff! Wish it was mine! I have bought some Mexican fire opal hoping I could maybe try to make a cabochon but I am so afraid of ruining the stones. For some reason these opals where in a jar of water when sent to Me. I was under the impression that mexican fire opal did not need to stay in water. Now I am afraid to take them out because they are really orange and very opally with beautiful flashes of reds yellows, blues and green hues. They also threw in some black opal and water opal in the same parcel together. I hope I said that right, but I am afraid to take them out of the water now because I am so, unfamiliar with the material. Any suggestions?
Very nice! Good looking gem. I have a few pieces of this and also some Mexican fire opal, so I'm now very excited to get to them. Sounded like the stone was cutting pretty quick, did you have any issues with heat?
If you are ever interested in working more with Oregon Fire Opal, give me a shout. I've worked a bit with a claim owner and have a pretty great collection I'd be happy to make available to you.
What price would that go for? Assuming someone was not a named facter that has not won awards. Also would the super glue method be better than dop wax to avoid the heat damage? I'm also torn between, facetron or MK5. Trying to get into the hobby but I'm not looking to get burned on the cost of these machines. Yours seemed simple enough and did not use a digital angle meter. Is that way to go?
@VintageTimeGems I was curious because I'll have a pretty interesting stone I'd wonder if you've ever faceted before (benitoite in both crystal and stony variety)
IWould like to know how much are these Oregon fire opals worth? And I have some actually a lot of I believe this opal and don’t know what to do with it it’s all rough.
In the rough state it seems fairly common in the USA, but once faceted the price jumps up. Would expect a 9-10 mm well cut round to be $150 -$200 US. Maybe more as Opal is tricky to facet as it chips easily and does not like heat whilst removing it from the dop. If you have a lot of it, I would learn to facet it. I have some fire Opal from the US, but not a huge amount as it is not usually sold at gem shows. I've received some from of my subs in the US as a gift. I'm very grateful they did, because I've always wanted to facet some. African fire opal is a nice color, but I wouldn't bother faceting it because it absorbs water and looks horrible when the water evaporates and the gem becomes dry. I hope that answers a few questions. Regards Cliff
@@VintageTimeGems if you have an address I would love to send you some as a gift just to see what you can do with them. Thank you again for all your information.
I love to watch the cutting. However to sit through the entire upload with a song that is so repetitive I personally cannot handle it and hit the mute. No offence, Still watch them.
