Kyocera Opal

[Blacksheep]

well i was sent 3 small opal chips to try out ,turns out on the business card it says Kyocera, now i didnt think they worked in boro at all so didnt really rush to try it out
Last night i dropped one down a tube 9mm and slowly melted it in in the back of the flame .its my first try with an opal of any kind. it melted in well and i immediately placed it in the kiln .
it was my last thing of the night so i wasnt opening the kiln. this morning i emptied the kiln and was suprised to see the opal in one piece and looking awesome!

so has anyone used these opals ? it sure has nice color/s and flash .
do you think it may check in time or its good ?
i have 2 more and will now get on them and see how they work out.

[mer]

it looks just like a gilson's opal. are you sure kyocera is the type of opal and not just a brand name or something? looks nice.

[Alfred]

As well as occurring naturally, opals of all varieties have been synthesized experimentally and commercially. The discovery of the ordered sphere structure of precious opal led to its synthesis by Pierre Gilson in 1974 (Klein and Hurlbut, 1985, p.528). The resulting material is distinguishable from natural opal by its regularity; under magnification, the patches of color are seen to be arranged in a "lizard skin" or "chicken wire" pattern. Synthetics are further distinguished from naturals by the former's lack of fluorescence under UV light. Synthetics are also generally lower in density and are often highly porous; some may even stick to the tongue.

Two notable producers of synthetic opal are the companies Kyocera and Inamori of Japan. Most so-called synthetics, however, are more correctly termed imitations, as they contain substances not found in natural opal (e.g., plastic stabilizers). The imitation opals seen in vintage jewellery are often "Slocum Stone" consisting of laminated glass with bits of foil interspersed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal)

Click the link(whole quote) to read more on opals:D

[Swampy]

If you anticipate the other two coming out duff like that the best thing you can do is send them to me.

pm me for address okay mang. jes tryna help a buddy out anall...

[Alfred]

Here's another link with some more info on opals (http://www.minerals-n-more.com/Opal_Gil_Info.html)

[mer]

thanks alfred. yeah, those opals are totally stable, been using them for years.

[Alfred]

I didn't know that the synthetic ones didn't glow in UV,good way to help identify them.

[Ro's Glass World]

great info link on opals, thanks!
ro

[Greymatter Glass]

the Acme and Manning International opals are sweet.

Kyocera is a huge conglomerate... no surprise they make the stuff.

Nice find.

-Doug

[Blacksheep]

ok thanks i was thinking they were a different process and maybe had the plastics in em ,all good then just have to see what i can get a mittfull of em for ;)
are they easy to cut or break into smaller bits incase you have bigger pieces .
nice to get as many out of it as possible

[Greymatter Glass]

use your disc nippers to cut them, they're easy to cut.

The tumble polished ones are best, and you probably don't want to break them up, but chucks can easily be cut with nippers.

[Swampy]

One of the Canadian blowers that visited had a small amount of Gibson opal 'bits', they looked good encased too.

[LaPlayaGlass]

I like the shadow in that pic...Looks like someone sniffing the piece...Remind me to tell ya's how I did on the inkblot tests. lol
AL