80+ left to go

Moving to Wyoming had afforded us a few things that we have not had in Pocatello.  There is a sense of community in this small town, where everyone knows everyone, that makes everyone step up and help each other.  There is more money in the schools, so our children have been able to be involved in  more activities. And I have been able to cross something off of my life goal list, opal making.

When I was at Ricks College I met someone who made opals.  His name was Larry, and he worked with DSH.  He showed me some of the unfinished opals one day while I was at work with DSH.  Unfinished opals? How is an opal unfinished? I thought they were rocks.  Larry showed me that most opals are just a vein in a rock.  These veins are sanded down, and made into a triplet, which is a carbon back, the opal vein, and a quartz cap.  I was fascinated by what I was learning. Ever since then, I have wanted to learn how to make opals.

There is an opal mine in Spencer, Idaho.  I have been up to Spencer many times because the Winder family takes the cattle to summer there.  We have camped, fished, had family reunions, moved cows, 4 wheeled, shot guns there, but never have we gone to the mine.  I often begged Joe to stop at one of the many rock shops that line the streets of Spencer. He relented, once.  I looked at all of the opals, finished and raw. Of course I wanted to buy something. Joe thought it was ridiculous for me to buy something, and he was right. I didn't know the first thing about finishing an opal, or have any access to any equipment to help me.

Now I am in Wyoming, quite a distance from the mine in Spencer.  I was sitting in Relief Society and saw a woman sitting behind me who had on an opal pendant.  I commented on how much I liked her necklace, and she told me that her husband had made it.  I then learned that he got his opals in Spencer.  I told her of my desire to make opals, and she said that her husband would love to teach me.

I was so excited to go to their home and  have Brother R. teach me how to make opals.  The following is a detailed description of what I learned.

Bro. R taught me that most opals are very thin veins, and they are very unstable. They crack easily, and can be destroyed if not careful while trying to make them.  There are some opals that are much more stable, such as the Ethiopian opals.  They are more like a stone.  There are many different kinds of opals, but I am going to focus on the ones from Idaho.  An opal is hydrated silica. Some times they can loose their color as the level of water in the silica decreases. Some of the opals that are mined are thick enough that they can be a solid rock or a doublet.  A doublet is only two layers.  A lot are triplets.  I learned how to make a triplet.

Bro R went to Spencer and rummaged for rocks that had opal veins in them, that had been brought out of the mine.  He has a bunch of it in his basement that he can use at his disposal.

We searched through his rough opal until he found one he thought would be a good choice.

This opal was marked "AAA" because Bro R though it would make a good opal.  He marks where the vein is on the rock with a sharpie marker.  That way he knows where to cut the rock.  He cuts the rock on a tile saw, which has water running through it.  The cut is made about 1/4" away from the vein.

Here you can start to see the opal vein. 

Next you sand down the opal until you get into the vein.  This is done with diamond blade.  As the rock is sanded, it needs to be checked often.  If it is sanded too much, it may be sanded right through the vein, and then it is ruined.  Because opals are unstable, they crack easily.  To prevent that, there is a drip system that is used on the sander to keep the heat down.

Unfortunately, this opal didn't work out. There was stone in the middle of the vein, and it never got very clear.  This one went into the trash.  The thing about opals, they are kind of like a treasure hunt.  Remember the build up of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's vault?  All of the build up, then nothing inside.  Same thing here.  It looked good from the outside, even got the "AAA" status, but nothing worth keeping.  Bro R said he wanted me to have a nice piece, so he picked another rock he though would work.  He worked it for a while then handed it to me.  After sanding, this is what we had.

 Now for the decision making.  The color is good on this opal, and there aren't very many visible flaws.  I could make a doublet out of it, which would mean trimming the rock off of the back, and putting on a cap. What you see is what you get.  But Bro R thinks it will have a lot of color if we make it a triplet, but there is a chance we make crack or break it.  I decided to go for the color. 

We glued a carbon back onto the face of the opal,

Cut the rest of the rock off, so we could sand down to the vein from the other side.

 

After the sanding was all done, this is what we ended up with.  I was very excited.

 

The color ended up so bright, and colors that I loved.  There were a few flaws in the opal though.  There are a few fissures, which could have been there the whole time, or could have been caused by too much pressure and heat, or just the instability of the stone itself. There is also a cloud the shape of a 'V' in the middle of the stone.  We decided to cap the whole piece, instead of trying to just get the clearest part of the stone.  It would make a very large opal, and those aren't very common, even though there would be some flaws in it.   So we glued a quartz cap on the top, Bro R sanded it into an oval, and this is the end product.

Over Thanksgiving I took it to a friend in Pocatello who is a silver smith. He put it in a setting for me and now I can wear it as a necklace.

Now I have been bitten by the bug.  I am ready to get my own stuff and get started. 

Only if I lived closer to an opal mine. . .