@mattcortez9156 All or most of my smaller rough pieces are pretty clean of fractures. The larger ones are usually already cracked, but the cracks are hard to see even under lighting. The first opal in this video fell apart in my hands as I was shaping it. The second opal, I found the cracks, and made the rough into more pieces based on those cracks. It's ok that opal breaks sometimes. It is how we utilize the pieces left over that matters most. It can be frustrating, but is also a learning experience to still have fun, and learn as we go in opal cutting. You asked a great question for sure. If you don't mind, I can do a follow up video with your question on the video. Just let me know cause I don't want to include your handle if your not good with it. I will be doing a more in depth video on cutting and polishing soon though.

@CanyonArchaic yeah that's fine but how were you able to cut such a big piece and still be left with as big of a stone as you did. Biggest I can get due to crumbling is roughly 6mm rounds. I did cut a nice sized oval but it cracked right across the stone and all the way through during the drying process.

@MrBird94 thank you! It's drying out nicely and will get a follow up video for sure.

It's fun to cut. I like ethiopian opal a lot, I cut dry with ppe most of the time. Unless I'm searching in a gnarly nodule.

Thank you very much. It's great to see others that want to learn this craft.

@@lookingforsomething505 thank you very much.

Thank you very much! It can be very challenging, but it is also very rewarding. 😊