Hi! I'm Liga from Liga's Opals & Gems
and today I will show you how to dop opals!
Here I've got ready opals
Doping sticks
Candle
Wax
and tweezers.
So, we got everything and we can start
the process.
The first thing what I will do
is to heat the dopping stick
and the wax
what's already there.
Kind of prepare and
be ready,
and then choose a stone.
Take it with tweezers
so it keeps surely,
and then
heat the wax
and start to heat the stone
a little bit.
Be very careful when you heat the stone
never leave it over the flame static
as opal have
some water content (4-12% depending on origin)
and
if it boils, stone (opal) can explode.
I ever had it happen yet,
but there is always that risk.
So, we don't heat opal
too much,
we don't want that
anything happens to it.
We just want, that
opal sticks to the wax.
here we go!
And what we do now
we will adjust the stone
so it's actually leveled
and even
That's what I'm looking at now.
And
the one thing what we want is,
that wax supports around
two thirds
of the stone.
Here we go,
this one is ready!
You're always
depending
of a shape
but you always can try to center
the stone in the middle of the dop stick,
as it's actually the stick
what supports the stone,
the wax is only
the glue.
So, you
should not be using teeny tiny stick
for a big stone.
And again,
it looks that its all nice and even
from all sides.
It will be a nice teardrop.
So, as you can see, I used medium
dops.
Now I will be using much
larger ones.
I am missing a little bit
wax on this one,
so I will add some more.
The wax, what I'm using is
called
doping (cabbing) wax.
You can find it in
stores what are
specialized for jewellers, and lapidary stores.
For cabbing the green one
is the recommended one.
Be very careful, that your
tweezers actually hold well the stone.
I had sometimes it
falling in
the candle.
That's not fun, because then you need
to clean the stone very, very carefully
to get off the candle wax.
It's quite meditative process
And I enjoy
just quiet
now I dop the stones
then we go and cut them.
Sometimes I choose
candles with a scent,
that kind of makes
nice additional bonus.
So, on this stone you can see
there is oval
drawn on it.
As I
find a shape
I will be able to do the best.
So, I'm kind of trying to
center
the oval,
not the shape of rub,
and evening it out too.
Nice crystal here
some greens and blues.
It's very importand to have good tweezers
As,
those will be the tool, what you
will use quite a lot.
Even
if it's only a hobby,
and even if you cut with hand,
I would recommend to dop
the stones
(You can see, it was not heated enough.)
I recommend to dop the stones
as it will make
so much easier and faster
even working on sandpaper,
or with dremel.
As, if it's not
on a dop
it could slip so easily.
And this sticks and
wax is not the most expensive part
of investment
in opal cutting hobby.
It's definitely worth to
have them.
I am using the wax
another people like to use
glue,
superglue or
epoxy glue.
I tried,
that's definitely not
my favorite thing.
As,
you need to wait
you need to wait to
glue;
for glue to dry.
Then, when you are done job
you need to wait when it will
get off.
with (using)
solutions and it's smelly
and
I don't like that process.
But everybody has their own way
of doing things.
Same for dop sticks
some people use corks,
or nails.
I use wooden sticks,
those have been with me already six years.
Here we go.
And this one is ready for doping too.
This stone I will be doping
with the face down,
as first I wanted to
complete the back side.
And then turn it around
and complete the face (dome of the opal)
Here they are, all ready to go
to get polished.
And thank you for watching my video,
hope you enjoyed it.
Please subscribe to my channel
if you would like to see more about opals!