Inlaying Raw Opals

[AdamB]

I admit it I know nothing about working with opals, raw or cooked.

I have someone willing to swap a lot of opal for a couple of pens inlayed with it. These are opals that he found in his folks basement, I guess they were opal hunters at one point in time and they have hundreds of pounds of the stuff. His folks are now in there 70's and he wants to swap some that they gave him for some pens to give back.

I was thinking some type of dark burl with the opal peeking out in stratified layers would be neat. Kinda like the tree grew around it.

So hook me up, Can it be done? is it worth it? and most important How?

Adam

 

[dfurlano]

you can inlay them but I dont think I would suggest turning them! (at least with wood turning tools).

 

[Daniel]

Adam.
Here is what I do.
turn the pen to very close to final shape, no sanding yet. this can be very tricky with wood that has voids. I filled some of them with epoxy in order to turn the blank.
using dremel tool I carved aout the area for the inlay. or the holes already existed.
using my half ton press that I use to assemble pens. I crushed most of the Opal. everything from small pieces to very fine dust. I then filled the voids with larger pieces of opal selecting pieces that have some fire to them. I then filled in around those with the dust and smaller pieces. very hard to do and you have to work in small areas. I then drip CA over the whole thing to set it.
I then take the dremel tool with a grinding stone and grind the little humps of Opal back down to flush withthe wood.
mount the whloe thing on the lathe and sand it all smooth. the opal will not sand as easily as the wood so you have to have it ground very close to the final shape.
the final CA finish will bring all the color of the Opal back out.

 

[Darley]

Originally posted by Always Practicing
<br />I admit it I know nothing about working with opals, raw or cooked.

I have someone willing to swap a lot of opal for a couple of pens inlayed with it. These are opals that he found in his folks basement, I guess they were opal hunters at one point in time and they have hundreds of pounds of the stuff. His folks are now in there 70's and he wants to swap some that they gave him for some pens to give back.

I was thinking some type of dark burl with the opal peeking out in stratified layers would be neat. Kinda like the tree grew around it.

So hook me up, Can it be done? is it worth it? and most important How?

Adam

Opal is a soft stone, when filled just grind down the stone with a small diamont file ( flush to the wood like Daniel say ) I will put 1 coat of CA then wet sand the stone clean up the barrel then CA again

 

[AdamB]

well, it sounds do a1ble. Well I'll post a pict of a completed pen eventually. I hope.