Wholesale lapidary equipment, for hobbyists or for professional Opal cutters from drills ,saw blades, loops, tweezers kits for you Opal requirements.
Diamond tip drills are ideal for drilling holes in Opals to make opal beads or as opal bead necklace.
Dremel drills are popular or standard drill set on slow speed and using water is suitable for hobbyist opal cutters
Saw blades are available and you need thin saw blade to cut opal stones and thick saw blades for opal rough will chip sides off on your opal stone so it is best to have 2-3 grades of saw blades and only use thin saw blade on opal stones and thick blade on large opal rough. By using thin blade on rough it will blunt very quick so is more economical to have several blades even if start up cost is more they will last longer.
Many lapidary clubs have cutting and polishing equipment to learn opal cutting.
Source your lapidary supplies direct form lapidary suppliers and opal wholesalers
With such a huge amount of gemstone rough you can purchase many people are making great pieces of jeweller , souvenirs and just great one of hand made pieces with some basic lapidary items.
Cutting blade with Strong Shaft – when you first have your gemstone in the rough first cut it into the basic shape you want and place the unwanted piece a side , you can always come back to these pieces and make something else from them in Asia cutting shops nothing is wasted you be surprised at how small pieces are and how they are used the tinniest off cuts can be made into beautiful mosaic work.
Burr sets Diamond & Tungsten Carbide - these you can pick up in sets with heads like Cylindrical, Sphere , Bullet and many many more , really massive range of different heads and sizes from very small for all that intricate carving work to pieces where the head size is 10 mm which really used for large carvings , if your piece of gemstone has some inclusion like sandstone this is the tools you would use to remove it with , these are really very handy and will last a long time if used properly and you do not let the tools over heat cool down with water I really like to use these when they are used a bit and the grit has been rub down a little as you can really do some fine work like carving and get into all those concave and convex piece like with boulder opal you would really be surprised at what a beautiful pieces you can make from a inexpensive rough slab of boulder opal.
Diamond Coated Hole Saw - these are used if you want to cut a hole through the rough gemstone for example you want to make a pendant piece again make sure you use some water to cool the drill and your gemstone also good idea to cut very early in the cutting process so if you get a small chip you can very easily fix it up .
Diamond Coated Twist Drills – from the smallest size to a few millimetres this is also used to drill holes like for bead making or anything you want to drill through use at a slow speed and cool with water. There are different quality in these drills you will find the cheaper once will have the same size shaft as the drill head these still do the job but more care is needed and drill at a slower speed , drills with thicker shaft like example 2.35 mm shaft will be a lot stronger drill and be able to handle more pressure and last longer .
Jeweller Files- to take those rough edges of the Jeweller settings .
Diamond Coated Sanding Disk – to smooth the rough over before polishing great little tool as easy to set up and used with care will last a long time .
Elastic Rubber Wheels & Points the finally stages before you start to polish and you really do not need to apply some pressure with these as you just want to achieve a smooth luster finish so your polishing will come up good .
Rubber Sanding Bands ¼ -1/2 inch again great for in between the rough stage to the finally polish as these are somewhat flexible so you can use some pressure easy to get into those concave pieces to get a smooth finish and take of any rough edges .
Wool Polishing Bobbs – for the finally polishing to get that magic luster Finnish you are after these also come in different size/shape heads with different hardness grade at this stage your piece of gemstone should really be done and have no scratches what so ever if you do find some very fine scratches you really need to go back a few steps and very finely rub/grind it out as the polishing process is what this is for and nothing more no matter how hard you polish the piece your fine scratches will not come out
