Boulder Opal Rough
Boulder Opal Rough Information
Boulder opal rough is boulder opal taken straight from the mine. It requires some skilful cutting and polishing to remove the excess ironstone and a little luck to split or slice in the right place.
So far boulder opal rough comes exclusively from Australia and the Queensland fields in particular’. Boulder opal rough has a dark to black body tone as defined by the body tone scale for opal classification.
Boulder Opal Rough is Attached to the Mother Rock
Boulder opal rough is opal still attached to the mother rock, in this case ironstone. The opal mostly runs in seams inside the ironstone and is often unseen until the opal cutter makes a cut into the rock. Some boulder opal is discovered by cracking open a piece of ironstone boulder to see whats inside. The opal seam sometimes splits the boulder in half and this can often result in mirror pairs of opals called ‘split faces’. These are often cut and shaped to be used as matching earrings.
Another type of boulder opal is called matrix opal. This type of opal rather than appearing as seams in the ironstone shows up as flecks of opal colour scattered through a piece of ironstone. This type of boulder opal rough is often used for making beads which look spectacular.
Cutting and Polishing Boulder Opal Rough
Boulder opal rough cutting and polishing is a specialised form of opal cutting. It can be a little messy because the boulder ironstone can stain your clothes if you are not careful so it’s good to have appropriate spray control and select machinery that allows the water to drain away rather than run in a muddy ‘soup’ as was the old way of doing it. The rough boulder opals are cut using a diamond blade and then cleaned up and shaped on a specialised opal grinding wheel. Polishing is done with sandpapers and a leather lap or felt wheel with cerium oxide paste to get the final polish. Rubberised diamond wheels are also used very successfully for boulder opal cutting but more details of this can be found in our specialised section on opal cutting.
Many collectors keep polished and unpolished boulder opals as specimens or conversation pieces. The dark brown ironstone is a fantastic setting to display opal in and many jewelry stores that have opal jewelry will have a boulder opal rough specimen to drape their jewelry over because it’s a great way to see the product from its original state to being able to be worn.
