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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Lapidary
Anyone treated fairy opal before?
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<blockquote data-quote="fossickeract" data-source="post: 542492" data-attributes="member: 3672"><p>Hi Ian,</p><p> I picked up some " fairy stone" looking like yours at Opalton couple years back, and experimented unfortunately I can only tell you what doesn't work. Soaked some slabes in olive oil then baked in oven. It was stable but a dirty brown background and not really attractive.Have been told diesel has been used before baking to give a better result. Second batch was soaked in honey solution(sugar) then treated in Sulfuric Acid. This came out very attractive but crumbled the acid had attacked the matrix.Its a sandstone matrix but seems to have calcite binding. Cabbing before honey treatment and quick coating with epoxy when dry after the acid worked but still not solid enough for jewellry use. </p><p> Cheers Ted</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="fossickeract, post: 542492, member: 3672"] Hi Ian, I picked up some " fairy stone" looking like yours at Opalton couple years back, and experimented unfortunately I can only tell you what doesn't work. Soaked some slabes in olive oil then baked in oven. It was stable but a dirty brown background and not really attractive.Have been told diesel has been used before baking to give a better result. Second batch was soaked in honey solution(sugar) then treated in Sulfuric Acid. This came out very attractive but crumbled the acid had attacked the matrix.Its a sandstone matrix but seems to have calcite binding. Cabbing before honey treatment and quick coating with epoxy when dry after the acid worked but still not solid enough for jewellry use. Cheers Ted [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Lapidary
Anyone treated fairy opal before?
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