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Joe has been casting since
1988 when he took his first casting class at William Holland
from Bob Raber. He has since learned from Roger Moore, Earl
Spiegle, Vi Hicks, Howard Spiegel, and Terry Higley. He also
took classes at Stewarts Jewelers School in Jupiter, Florida.
He has been teaching casting at William Holland for at least
10 years. Joe has been doing lapidary work since 1974. He
has taught CABBING and OPAL CUTTING at his Rock Shop in Avon
Park, FL, and at his local gem club workshop where he was
workshop director in 1988. Joe and his wife won the AFMS "Each
One Teach One" award in 1989. He has been teaching at
William Holland since 1992, but has specialized in Opal Cutting
and Casting since 1998 at William Holland and for SFMS. He
has developed "Opal Cure", a simple method of healing
cracks in opals and other soft stones, which he teaches in
his Opal classes.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This class covers cutting
Australian opal, Boulder opal, Mexican opal, Ethiopian opal
and Spencer opal. Joe teaches making doublets and triplets
in addition to freeform and calibrated opals. His class uses
the Genie, Pixie, Ameritool universal flat lap, band saw,
trim saw, buffers and anything else that is new to the market.
He also covers using OPAL CURE, a method he invented to seal
cracks in opal and all stones including agates using a simple
technique. He also discusses appraisal methods and everyone
appraises one of their stones using an Australian appraisal
system on a computer that generates a printed appraisal sheet.
CLASS FEE -There will be
a class lab fee of $25.00 for consumable materials used in
class. It will also include materials for one tripod using
reconstituted borders and opal chips in epoxy. Opal rough
for the week averages $100.00 on up depending on the grade
of opal desired. Opal and ring findings for inlay will be
available for purchase.
Maximum Number of Students:
6
Pre-requisite: None
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