Night Stone Jewelry

One really bright stone, and a group of random stones including some from Lightning Ridge, Coober Pedy, and some doublets.

0203CP12M
Size: 8mm x 7mm x 2mm (approx)
Weight: 1.05c

Well, I’ve been cutting opal for over 3 years now. This past week marked the 200th opal cabochon that I’ve cut which was of sufficient quality to “bag and tag”. Meaning I liked it enough to measure it, weight it, and all that.

So, simple though it may be, here is 0200CP12m

0197CP12m 15mm x 8mm x 4.5mm 3.40c
This opal has a good amount of color, though it is a bit directional, and not always real bright

This is a simple black jade cabochon made from some scrap I had on my shelf. It’s about 12 to 15mm in size. The backdrop has been photoshopped out on this one which makes it pretty easy to see the dust that managed to stick to the stone.

an opal and some amethyst

Made a number of opals tonight, including two really nice doublets.

0188CP12m

0189CP This one has a lot more flash to it than it would reveal for the camera. 16mm x 9mm x 5mm 4.5c

0190CP Killer broad flash on this one. Green and yellow depending on angles. 13mm x 8mm x 3.5mm Sadly, it has a fracture on the back.

0191CP An odd shaped opal with a stripe of color through it. 14mm x 9mm x 3mm 2.8c

0192CP 13mm x 7mm x 4mm 2.35c. Nice freeform. Has reds from the sides and green from the face.

0193CP 13mm x 8mm x 2mm 1.9C It has color within the inclusions, so I made something of it.

0194CP_D The first of two doublets and wow does it shine. 8mm x 5mm x 3mm 1.1c. This was from a piece of shell, so it does have stripes across the face, but it outshines that.

0195CP_D The second doublet. 7mm x 5mm x 3mm .95c Amazing color on this from every angle

I needed a break from working with wood, and since my lapidary side is set up now, I took to making some rocks.

0187CP12m. This one came out of a rock that was very difficult for me to cut when I originally got the rough that it came with. I decided to see what I could do with it and managed to pull some nice stuff out of it.

This one is TigerEye

And I also made a nice Jade and opal intarsia cabochon (11mm x 7mm x 4mm)

The stones below are grey base Lambina opal. 3 of them are from the same piece of rough. All of them were cut from rough that a friend of mine, whom the collection is named for, gave me when I was just a newbie opal cutter.

The back of 0186L shows a little angling that I need to correct, but will do that by hand as it is delicate work.
0186L is 18mm x 13mm x 3mm, and 4.65c skin to skin fire, predominantly red and green. If this isn’t at least a 4 on the brightness scale, I would be shocked. I don’t photograph opals to well, and, as with some previous ones, this one refuses to photograph badly.

0183L

0184L

0185L

0186L

0186L_back

I’m not going to go through and list the various stones here except to say that all but one are Coober Pedy opals, the other is a Stone Canyon Jasper.

This was a rather nice doublet. Unfortunately I slipped while burnishing the bezel, and the end of it shattered.

0172CP12m I think is the most colorful, bright, and firey opal I have ever cut to date.
At 15mm x 10mm x 4mm in size, it’s not a small one either.