Yeah unfortunately the wood texture is all gone just a standard cab now. Are you using electroplated or sintered? The electroplated burs will chip a lot more.

Any with a flex shaft attachment is fine. The flex shaft is fully mechanical with no electrical parts so there is no chance of mixing the two.

@@RoysRocks THANK YOUUUU so much for the reply! You made my day!

That's cool. I need to increase my USA opal collection in 2025

Due to the specimen nature of that massive chunk it's not worth a huge amount. A shop would ask over $1000 but it can be much less from a miner direct.

Not a huge amount, the stone is quite small and things like the potch lines lower the value rapidly though I think they look cool.

Oh and why soak it after cutting?

Yeah I am leaving the nova points behind I think. Too hard to get and expensive. The soaking is to get the glue off the stone (just overnight)

Oil is a pretty old school method. I have some rocks cooking in some acid as we speak for the next one. I'm also thinking of blending a sugar + oil method someone gave me as well.

My fave as well. Impossible stone to beat.

Having a few days off in a row have already got me flying through a bunch of projects. Spare time is amazing.

I will with this being the last stone I finish before tomorrow. A day of eating and drinking to come. I better finish cooking these fairy opals today.

You too man. Bring on 2025!

Hope there were some unusual ones in there for you to see.

@RoysRocks Several! 👍 Thank you!

No time off for me. Just a different type of work. This one more enjoyable.

Yeah another lucky one.

Patches are pretty common. Surprised engine oil cooked down well?

@ I’d say the result was similar to yours. I was treating fairy opals from Opalton.

Yeah I now need to dig through the collection to find another lightning ridge wood bit so I can do a video on polishing a specimen display.

No worries Chad. An unexpected winner this one.

Probably only around $100-200/ct. Its only blue, pretty small and people don't like potch lines in the face as much as I do even though it makes it more interesting.

I was pleasantly surprised by it for sure.

Hopefully enough to become a decent beginner jewelller.

Its much better than the display specimen I was planning on carving with it.

There can be some colour hidden in there for sure. Just always a chance of sand deep within. Somehow finds a way through the wood grains.

@RoysRocks bloody sand, how it works it's way in everywhere, lol! Enjoy your time off work and your jewellery making, have fun 😀

Merry xmas and happy new year! I havent seen a man mountain metals video in a bit. I'll have to see what you've been up to.

@RoysRocks my kitten 😸 video went bacterial with almost 1200 views before the algorithm dropped 🫳 it.

Oh man I am jealous, puts my three weeks of leave to shame. I'd love to go full time and "retire" which I dont think I ever will.

It was a surprise to me as well.

Hopefully 2025 will be me setting a hundred stones and selling them off.

and happy new year. Hopefully 25 is a better year for all.

The little lines are a cool feature in my mind.

Oh cool I havent tried any unusual shapes yet. Once I get a standard oval bezel 100% then I might move on. Like with science I want to get a grip on the fundamentals before aiming for the stars.

@RoysRocks I did and oval carnelian with an open back and a matching ring. Im still very green at it but im happy with the results, especially doing it from finding the stone to the finished set stone. I'll send you a Pic if I can find your email

​@RoysRocks I sent an email

True I have been practicing with cheap stones like pink opal (should be the first video). Some of the lower quality Boulder opal is probably a genius decision and I might do that as well.

So do I, the LR blue/black is one of my fave combos.

Hopefully, I think 24 almost ended me. Bad mental state with a really bad end to the year for work. A few extra weeks and I would have really struggled.

Lightning ridge does have some magic to it when it works out.

Thanks Glenn, hope the year finishes up well for you too.

@RoysRocks I look forward to your videos!!!

Thanks, was a fun stone and surprisingly easy going.

No worries, always just trying to help others get into the fun game of rock carving.

The acid one is pretty good and should be the next one coming up but we will see. A few other projects are about to finish which I am way overdue to release.

I still havent packed it all up... My desk is a mess.

1/ A fast curing 2-part epoxy, araldite is what I use. 2/ It'll peel off after being left in water. 3/ Any flex shaft attachment is fine. I was using an Ozito rotary tool that came with a flex shaft but now use a fake Foredom.

@RoysRocks Thanks

Nah those heavy oils wont burn without a furnace so we wouldn't get too far. You dont want a fully polished stone just shaped and pre-polished. Treatment doesnt take hold as well it the stone is polished (future video coming). You can also block the pores so the treatment is also not as deep. Just a final polish after a treatment like this. Well, stabilization then final polish.

Yeah you will induce hydrolysis and break the sucrose up if you give it some heat but it has to be a pretty heavy boil if you want it to be done quick. There is a research paper that studied this called "Rates of Spontaneous Cleavage of Glucose, Fructose, Sucrose, and Trehalose in Water, and the Catalytic Proficiencies of Invertase and Trehalas" by Richard Wolfenden and Yang Yuan. It wont effect the treatment much as using pure glucose/fructose themselves doesn't make much of a difference.

@ fair enough , I will leave if for the yeast to devour then 😜

Chemical availability is pretty different in some areas. Australia is pretty strict but you cant keep the oil/sugar and heat away from the masses.

There are some great tables from food tech research out there. I'll probably include a few in the website/book write up.

Well there are many other methods to go before I pick a best... but I do like sugar and heat.

Well there are many more to come. Plus stabilising which is much trickier.

@RoysRocks can't wait to see!!!! 😻💖

It really shouldn't need 500 with the right oil. A non-refined oil should be fully burnt to a crisp by the time you hit 200. The issue is the supermarket labels are never completely honest.

@@RoysRocks I've tried to figure this out but the science is a bit over my head. From what I understand at 200-250c you are just reaching smoke point and that is why you only get a slight darkening with some residual oil left on the stone. When I cook up to 500-600 or higher, full pyrolysis takes place and converts the entirety of the oil to carbon and that is what gives that very nice black darkening that make the embedded opal colour pop so hard. Most of my learning here empirical though. I know lots of ways it doesn't work but just because I try lots of ways and fail to get the commercial results I want. The fairy can take higher heat and gets better commercial results when you take up. I also find that stabilisation works a lot better after you take it up past 500c. No issues with the stabiliser mixing with oil that is not fully burnt. I think at higher temps the stone also becomes lighter, and seems more thirsty. It takes in stabilisers more easily, especially under vacuum.

500+ is like full carbonization of a material like when you are aiming for activated carbon compounds. Which is true that will lead to much more carbon than the slower carbon deposition at lower temperatures above the smoke point. The unrefined oils are meant to have a smoke point just above 100 which is why I was hoping to get decent carbon conversion at a bit over twice the smoke point but I don't think the cold pressed oil was simply cold pressed. Hence nothing until 180+. The lighter stones makes sense with the conversion of every last bit of oil and should make the rock soak up just about anything including a stabiliser. I will try to avoid the use of a furnace and stick to things people can get easily for now but out of interest later I can go all the way past 1000 to see what temp the opal is destroyed at.

​@@RoysRocks Add this to your list of experiments. Cut the top off of a coke can, make sure dry and put a piece of fairy in bottom. Cover fairy with olive oil, then put a tissue on top of the oil/fairy. Wait a sec for the tissue to soak up some of the oil. Then light the tissue on fire (in safe place outside). Then let your new "furnace" burn until the oil is completely used up. Anybody with some outside and $1 can do this. I've treated fairy/andamooka concrete/hard andamooka as a test in a roaring winter fire. Wrapped in foil and put off to the side in my wood oven. The hard matrix exploded but the fairy in oil treated really well. Must have been 800C plus in there burning hard wood with good air flow.

@OpalAuctions53Frogs why do I feel like I remember seeing you cook opal in coke cans on your channel in the past?