I'm just relaxing here in Ontario, Canada, watching and enjoying your bid a year after your other comments from viewers. It took a long time to get to me, but it's halfway around the World and it's just as good as when you made it. Cheers!
Thanks mate, I appreciate it. Not enough opal content out there for people to watch I’ve found(since I’m one) so I might as well help solve the problem!
Woohoo! Great to see a long form from you! And super interesting! You might be able to work around your higher grade scratch issue by sticking a pad, then the hook end of Velcro. You could then use that Velcro to attach any grade of sandpaper you like
I’m basically stuck with what I have. I just placed and order for new grits and will help it works this time. Riley was saying sometimes the wheels in general are just bad and no amount of wearing down the grit helps. Which is what I experienced with 2 months of work on my 1500 and 3000grit wheels. I just ordered new ones, but will have to wait until they arrive. I work quite remote so I am limited by mail deliveries.
I will be, just not at this exact moment. In the coming months I will, I’ve been out of the country working the past year almost. Didn’t take my wheel with me. I finish up here in Africa in a few weeks. Have a couple months of vacation and then I’ll end up restarting. I was moving around the world often the last year and got a bit tired of it. It’s an extra 30lbs of gear to bring between all of it+ rocks, and I already have to bring clothes, supplies and gear with me lol. So I left it at home. I’ll be a lot more stationary this year after vacation and will put my nose to the grindstone(pun intended) with all the great opal I’ve picked up. I’ve got a lot of GREAT material to work with.
I have the 6 inch slant cabber do you use the sponge backing discs under the polishing disc. I have the polish disc stuck straight onto the acrylic backing plate. What sintered wheel would you recommend to start with for opal, I polish agates as well. Thanks
Sorry mate for the late reply, very sorry indeed. You def have an answer by now I think, but just incase you don’t here’s mine: For opals, you put the soft disks under the polishing discs between the acrylic hard black disks. As I was told by the rep when I asked. They’re specifically for making opal cabs. I only make opal cabs, so I have no clue about agates sorry. For the sintered wheels, ANYTHING below 600 I think it is will put scratches so deep it’s hard to get them out without eating up tons of your stone to remove that deep scratch. I personally will use the 1200 and 3000 grit sintered wheels and it eats up the opals faster than the 240 grit resin bond wheels. I use the 1200 or 3000 for rough shaping to eat away a lot of rough fast and get to where I need to go. Once I get to where I start to see what I want. I switch to 240/320 resin wheels to get me where I want to be with shaping and etc. this way by the time it’s snapped roughly and ready for polish. All the deep scratches from the sintered wheel are gone :) Anything below those wheels and you see CHUNKS splinter and fly off your opal. It’s simply too rough. It will actually CAUSE fractures in your stone. Again, I’m very sorry I responded so late. I hope and assume your found your answer before now, but if now here is mine. I hope it was of some value, but you’ll figure it out once you’re on the wheel quite quick :)
I'm just relaxing here in Ontario, Canada, watching and enjoying your bid a year after your other comments from viewers. It took a long time to get to me, but it's halfway around the World and it's just as good as when you made it. Cheers!
Nice the opal came out beautiful can't wait to see how far you go
Thanks mate, I appreciate it. Not enough opal content out there for people to watch I’ve found(since I’m one) so I might as well help solve the problem!
I’m glad you started to show the whole process, very interesting!
Thank you 😊
Woohoo! Great to see a long form from you! And super interesting!
You might be able to work around your higher grade scratch issue by sticking a pad, then the hook end of Velcro. You could then use that Velcro to attach any grade of sandpaper you like
I’m basically stuck with what I have. I just placed and order for new grits and will help it works this time. Riley was saying sometimes the wheels in general are just bad and no amount of wearing down the grit helps. Which is what I experienced with 2 months of work on my 1500 and 3000grit wheels. I just ordered new ones, but will have to wait until they arrive. I work quite remote so I am limited by mail deliveries.
Are you still doing any opal polishing? Would like to see some more videos.
I will be, just not at this exact moment. In the coming months I will, I’ve been out of the country working the past year almost. Didn’t take my wheel with me. I finish up here in Africa in a few weeks. Have a couple months of vacation and then I’ll end up restarting. I was moving around the world often the last year and got a bit tired of it. It’s an extra 30lbs of gear to bring between all of it+ rocks, and I already have to bring clothes, supplies and gear with me lol. So I left it at home. I’ll be a lot more stationary this year after vacation and will put my nose to the grindstone(pun intended) with all the great opal I’ve picked up. I’ve got a lot of GREAT material to work with.
I have the 6 inch slant cabber do you use the sponge backing discs under the polishing disc. I have the polish disc stuck straight onto the acrylic backing plate. What sintered wheel would you recommend to start with for opal, I polish agates as well. Thanks
Sorry mate for the late reply, very sorry indeed. You def have an answer by now I think, but just incase you don’t here’s mine:
For opals, you put the soft disks under the polishing discs between the acrylic hard black disks. As I was told by the rep when I asked. They’re specifically for making opal cabs. I only make opal cabs, so I have no clue about agates sorry. For the sintered wheels, ANYTHING below 600 I think it is will put scratches so deep it’s hard to get them out without eating up tons of your stone to remove that deep scratch. I personally will use the 1200 and 3000 grit sintered wheels and it eats up the opals faster than the 240 grit resin bond wheels. I use the 1200 or 3000 for rough shaping to eat away a lot of rough fast and get to where I need to go.
Once I get to where I start to see what I want. I switch to 240/320 resin wheels to get me where I want to be with shaping and etc. this way by the time it’s snapped roughly and ready for polish. All the deep scratches from the sintered wheel are gone :)
Anything below those wheels and you see CHUNKS splinter and fly off your opal. It’s simply too rough. It will actually CAUSE fractures in your stone.
Again, I’m very sorry I responded so late. I hope and assume your found your answer before now, but if now here is mine. I hope it was of some value, but you’ll figure it out once you’re on the wheel quite quick :)
@@DefinitelyNotBlackOpalDirect that's great thanks for the reply will get more some discs for the slant cabber.