Thread: Opal Take 1

in my humble opinion

Thanks Tashammer,IMHO your ok too Amos

Very nice Toni!

It is an idea I wanted to try here, but haven't figured out what is needed to cast the blanks. I have another idea I want to do but since no one has blanks in the colors I need (just plain black and white) I'm going to have to make my own.

For that project I made the adapter needed last night to index the blank off the faceting head for use on the milling machine on the metal lathe ).

Now that you have figured out the failure mode the next ones will move from very nice to stellar. Something about opals that has called to me all my life ). Must explain my strange attraction to .au ).

Nice one Toni. The real opals certainly look better than the fake glitter stuff that I used.

Certainly there are paints around that will not be affected by heat or react with resins, but another alternative I use, is painting the sleeves with tinted resin or epoxy. No reaction nor problems with heat.

MMn Tony hi great pen as to tubes lets try this . a multi lay up . get some resin tint in the colour you want . sand blanks like rick said .mix a small amount of resin with a tooth pick amount of tint not much as its strong stuff . now with your opal chips to one side your tube pushed onto a dowel or pencil apiece of wood with holes drilled into it to take the dowel . your resin pre tinted and a brush .add hardener to the resin stir it up slowly .now while holding dowel paint your tube with the resin .when coated ( you may want to re do this if its not dark enough ) apply your opal chips put in the wooden block and let dry . You can then either paint on more resin ( clear ) or plug the ends ,and cast it . i hope this helps .,

i wonder what different sorts of mineral dust and rocks dusts would be like. Panned tin might be a goer though i don't know what effect it would have on tools edges. Panned sands and gravels. Iron ore and bauxite etc all in acrylic. (It's all your fault Toni)

Gidday Tash, Can't let the pen making get old hat got to keep the brain ticking and let the addiction deepen...LOL
Does you good
Toni