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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. He has been
teaching at William Holland since 1992. He also teaches at
Wildacres and William Holland for SFMS. Joe and his wire,
Addy, won the AFMS "Each One Teach One' national award
in 1989. He has specialized in Opal Cutting and Casting since
1998. He has developed "Opal Cure" which is a simple
method of healing cracks in opals and other soft stones. He
teaches this technique in great detail in his Opal classes.
Joe also specializes in the many uses of the new space age
glues and epoxy, which he will explain.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This opal cutting class
covers cutting of 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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