What To Cut

Aurora Opal

- Russ Kaniuth

Every day I’m on the internet, whether it be on Facebook or eBay, I see new materials being introduced into the lapidary world. There have always been a large number of “purists” who do not like to work with anything that is not a natural stone, but many others, like myself, feel that trying something new can be fun, adventurous and challenging.

Recently, I came across Aurora Opals (www.aurora-opals.com), which is a homogeneously crystalized, synthetic, impregnated opal. Roy Goldberg, at Aurora Opals, describes this material as irregular and fine crystalline, with nondirectional, multicolor swirls, with green, orange, blue and red being the dominant colors in the spectrum.

After reading through Roy’s website and admiring all the various pictures, I was definitely intrigued enough to try this material.