The Pulitzer Opal Technique Ethiopian Shewa Province Opal Stabilization
The goal of treatment is to remove all of the water and replace it with epoxy resin. You must use Hxtal Epoxy. It is the world’s best epoxy and dries crystal clear and is very strong. It is used by museums to restore artifacts and art work. HXTAL IS EXPENSIVE. If you do not use it, I don’t believe that you will be successful. In order to do this, you need to replace the water with something that mixes with water, but also mixes with epoxy resin. Acetone is that “something.”
1. Never let Shewa opal dry out or it will be ruined. Acetone is the fastest drying liquid at room temperature, so be very careful. 2. Take water soaked Shewa opal, wipe off the excess water and put the stones in 100% acetone. 3. After about 12 hours at room temperature, the water in the stones be fully mixed with acetone. The acetone is then NOT 100% any more. 4. Repeat this step 3-5 more times. Remember that the goal is to reduce the amount of water in the acetone. Epoxy does not mix with water. 5. The more acetone in the container, the lower the concentration of water, so use as much acetone as your container will allow. 6. Pour out acetone out and immediately pour the Hxtal resin in. Completely cover the stones, then add about an extra inch of resin on top. 7. Heat resin to 180° F for 3-6 days. For stones thicker than one inch (2.5 cm), as much as 7-10 days may be necessary. a. I personally use a vacuum oven, but honestly, I do not believe that vacuum is not necessary. 8. Take out of oven and let cool to room temperature, preferably 65-70°F. 9. Pour out resin and wipe excess off of the stones 10. Paint thick layer of hardener on stones and place on flexible plastic sheeting (Epoxy will not adhere strongly to plastics). Zip lock plastic bags work fine. 11. Place stones in spot where they are in the 70°s for 4-6 days. The lower the temperature, the more slowly it will harden. For thick stones, I believe that a temperature of 60-65° F for up to 10-12 days may work better (I have not tested this). 12. You may wipe the excess hardener off, then place the stones in a place at 85-95° F for 3-4 days. Heating cures epoxy much faster than at room temperature 13. After curing, there will be excess hardener on the stones. It is best to wipe this off with cloth. Ethyl or Isopropyl alcohol (95-100%) may help remove the residual hardener. (Tested, but not proven.)
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Video Summary
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The video discusses the accessibility and stabilization of affordable opals, specifically focusing on Shewa Province Ethiopian Opal. The presenter explains the nature of \"jelly opal,\" the inherent instability of Shewa opal (which cracks if not kept in water), and a detailed chemical process to stabilize these stones using acetone and epoxy resin to make them durable.
Millions of people around the world love opal, and they all want some.
But is that possible?
Oh, opal is too expensive, right?
Wrong.
And I'm going to show you why in this video.
This is a cabochon of jelly opal from Mintabie
that I bought about 10 years ago.
But what is jelly opal anyway?
Well, jelly opal is opal in which the color seems to float,
somewhat resembling jelly.
If you don't see what I'm talking about, I understand.
But once you've seen it a few times,
you will be able to recognize it easily.
Jelly opal is not the most desirable type of opal,
and if you bought a piece of expensive
opal expecting it to be high grade,
only to find that you've got jelly opal, it's super undesirable.
And that's what happened to me here.
I paid a lot of money for a large piece of meant-to-be-seamed
opal. Looking at the edge,
it looked great to a relative rookie, which I was back then,
and it did have crystal opal on one side,
but it was very thin, too thin to make a cabochon out of it
So I was left with...
Jelly opal. A lot of it. S***.
Now I must admit that this is on the higher end of the jelly opal
spectrum. It's pretty good.
But there is some jelly opal that is truly high grade and it's
worth just as much as high grade crystal opal.
Wait a minute. This just in from the opal scientists
at Pulitzer Opal University.
They have determined that this jelly opal cabochon is to become
an opal arrowhead. What wonderful news.
Now, I agree with the professor's decision, but I'm somewhat worried
about that small crack that I noticed in my own examination.
Nooooo.
The two things that you have to learn
to live with when making arrowheads.
Breaks and blood.
Okay,
look.
I try
my best
to give
Opal
away,
but the
problem
is
shipping.
No, not the cost, but the time.
Let's see.
25 minutes per parcel times 7.9 billion people,
that's about 10 bazillion hours,
which is really a bit too long.
And if Sheila helps, well, it'll take twice that long.
This is a list of the world's best opals.
Australian's the best, but are any
of these actually affordable to the millions who want them?
Okay, I put Gilson Synthetic Opal on there,
but it's not opal, so it gets eliminated.
So that leaves only one.
Shewa Province Ethiopian Opal.
What is it? Is it any good?
Well, you've been watching it for the last couple of minutes
in the background. And don't let that $2 per carat fool you, though.
I bought this opal in
Tucson a few months ago for less than a dollar a gram.
That's 20 cents per carat.
Okay, 20 cents per carat is great, but what's the catch?
Well, the catch is that Ethiopian Shua opal cracks
if it's not kept in water.
I mean, who wants to carry their opal around in a jar?
You could lose a hip.
Well I didn't bring you guys here to see a bunch of opal cracking.
You see there's a way to stabilize Shewa opal
so that it will never crack. No water necessary.
I've worked on this formula for five years
and today I'm going to stabilize and cut some Shewa
opal and I'm going to give you guys the secret formula.
Just look in the description. In order
to stabilize opal that absorbs water we first need
to remove as much sand as possible.
If you can grip a mound of sand, sometimes you can break it off.
Like that. Pretty nice.
Here's another one. Got it. This doesn't happen very often.
The sand has to be removed because it
gets in the way of the stabilization process.
But as with all opal, most of the sand is removed by
grinding. But occasionally you get one that has
so much thick sand that you can just slice it off.
That really worked well.
I really cut off a lot, a lot of sand,
but now back
to the grind.
Very vivid colors.
Stabilization involves removing all of the water
from inside the opal and replacing it with epoxy resin.
Once it's hardened, the opal is almost indestructible.
Now, I'm not gonna bore you with the details,
but here's about what happens.
The opals have been in water for years,
so we pour out the water and replace it with acetone.
Then we have about 90% acetone.
We pour that out, put in fresh acetone.
We repeat this step until we get 100% acetone.
After that, we add the epoxy resin.
That's the basic process,
but I'm warning you that this is a somewhat complicated recipe,
and if you don't follow my instructions
that I put in the description, you will fail.
People have asked me
if my stabilization process will stabilize Ethiopian Wello opal.
Well, I'm adding this piece of wello opal to today's run,
and we will all get to see if it stabilizes.
Not having to worry about your wello opal getting wet?
Sounds good to me. I hope it works.
The winner of Taylor,
the 10.62 carat Matrix Opal Arrowhead, is Eight Dogs.
The winner of Carlos,
the 12.54 carat Matrix Opal Arrowhead, is Leafbinder.
And the winner of Red,
the 23.57 carat Dark Base Crystal Opal Cabochon, is My Wife.
Dot is an older Opal weighing 10.5 carats.
Up until now, she's been quiet and meek,
but now that she's stable and sporting a beautiful pinfire pattern,
she's become flamboyant and a little annoying.
At 65.3 carats, we have Blaze.
Do you remember her from my video about Bubble Opal?
Well, she still looks great,
but is now extremely stable.
I mean structurally, not necessarily mentally.
And she is still the poster child for Bubble Opal.
So feast your eyes.
Willa is an attractive, lively wello opal weighing 39.5 carats.
We thought that she was just a pretty
face, but now she's hardened and ready to rumble.
But what's up with the scar? Makes it look tough,
but how did it happen? Well,
you may recall that when you cut wello opal in water, hidden cracks
just show up, and Willa's scar was just
a hidden crack before it was treated. You won't be able to
snap that one off very easily you're gonna have to use a saw
At 7.89 carats, Biff is slender, but he's also dangerous.
He loves to slash, but his specialty is poking, so watch your eyes.
He's looking for a good home with one of you guys,
but his pet peeve is jello, so beware.
Midge is an unassuming arrowhead with big upside potential,
whatever that means.
She weighs in at 14.25 carats, sharp enough to make a difference,
and big enough to make a scene.
If you win her,
Tie her to an arrow, or you might get an unexpected surprise.
These are jelly opal chips created
at the precise moment that Biff and Midge were born.
I know you guys like opal chips,
so leave a comment and you may win them.
I'm sad to report that the big opals were a big disappointment.
How did this happen?
What are all those tiny lines?
They're cracks.
Cracks that did not have enough time to stabilize.
You see, larger stones need more time to harden
because epoxy has to penetrate more deeply.
Before adding epoxy resin, the opals are filled with acetone.
The next day, epoxy resin is partially penetrated.
A day later, it's deeper, and after about three or four days,
the resin has completely filled the opal.
Now we have to harden it.
We add the hardener, and after a day,
it has penetrated about a fourth of the way in.
After two days, it's further in, but because it's partially hardened,
hardener has more difficulty reaching the remaining unhardened resin.
Now, if the opal is too thick,
hardening will occur before all the hardener has gotten to the middle,
and no more hardening is possible.
For those of you who want to try the stabilization process,
I have a few more things to tell you.
The rest of you can go back to watching PewDiePie.
First of all, I adjusted the formula in the description
for thicker stones, but the only way it's likely to work
is if you keep it in a very cool environment while it's hardening.
I'm talking about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cooling slows the hardening process, and by cooling it,
you slow down the whole process, and more hardener
might be able to reach the resin in the stones.
About buying Shua opal, be very careful.
The only way that I can somewhat guarantee that you'll get
the right stuff is if you buy it at a gem show from a seller
who has it in tubs of water.
I would not risk buying Shua province opal elsewhere,
particularly on eBay.
Do not buy dry stones.
Try as you might, you will not be able to get the
water inside the opal if it's dry to begin with.
Do not buy chocolate opal.
The dark brown Shua opal is called that.
And trust me, if it's dark brown Shua opal,
you're looking at Crack City and I'm not talking about drugs.
Do not buy Shua opal that has been soaking in anything but water.
On eBay, I would not even trust that.
Some sellers soak the opals in mineral oil
and you will never get that stuff out of it.
The best results
happen when you work with Shua that has a yellow background.
The density of color in stones with a clear background
is usually not enough to make a nice, thin cabochon.
That's all the advice that I have.
Any of the big gem shows, Tucson, Denver,
Las Vegas, and others come to mind.
The only epoxy that works for this is what I put in the description.
If you buy anything else, you will fail.
And I'm sick of talking, so goodbye.
