Welcome to opalholicsanonymous.com where opal season lasts forever.

Well, its pretty straightforward and simple really. Hard work, but simple. And takes a long time.
In a nutshell here it is:
Size up the opal and decide what you want to do with it. This sometimes takes as long as actually sanding and polishing, at least for me.
Whats the top, whats the bottom, where is that color?!
I use two grits for making it into a preform (very rough approximate size and shape opal). 80 and then 160 grit. This can be done on a hard or semi-hard surface, like a piece of 2x4 wood or some such. Something with a little give but not much.
Then I go to the soft stage, using 220, 400, 600, 800, and 1500 grit sandpaper. By soft I mean put a small towel underneath the sandpaper of whatever grit you're now using. This creates some "give" and can soften edges. All the sanding in this stage is done with water and wet/dry sandpaper. If the opal is too small, I just use some wadded up duct tape or painters tape to stick to the opal and get a grip while sanding. I KNOW that "mesh" is the proper word to use, but i cant seem to stop saying "grit"...lol...
Then I go to cerium oxide and water. I fold some felt up, put it in a cookie baking sheet with say 10mm edges (to contain the slurry/water), and then add powdered cerium oxide (I use pink, I think theres white also), and some water til its a slurry, and go to town polishing. Only at this stage do I not worry about taking too much off the stone. If I did it right and got out all the scratches from each previous grit sandpaper like I should have, this stage takes me about an hour a stone. It is not fast. And sometimes I DONT get out all the scratches from the previous grit sandpaper and have to go back a couple of steps. I use about 3 spoons of cerium to "load" the felt at first, and then (well, til the felt wears out) only about one spoon of cerium per stone.
This costs some money, but not too much as the sandpaper can be bought in packs and the cerium is maybe 15 dollars for eight ounces?
I will say that wearing a mask is easy to do, and only slightly bothersome. And, this is only my method, and I'm open to better ways.

You pretty much did it the same way I did my first one, which was such a thin layer of Welo crystal opal it turned out to be a mere 1.5mm thick, so I had to be careful to cushion it, too. I also used wet/dry sandpaper, and all the various grits (that's what I call them too), plus pink cerium oxide to polish other Welos, so your method is the same as I was taught.

The pics aren't great but here's the front side of it



And the back



There's a divot/flaw too deep to remove on the upper right side near the top, so I just left it and dubbed this one Cindy Crawford's lips.

Hey, that Welo crystal looks pretty good!
Under what I call Nominal Viewing Conditions, (regular room light,no magnification, 1/2 meter to 1 meter distance) I'd be sayin "what flaw?!

I may have made a topic but, there is a contest being run by Roys Rocks.

I like Roy's Rocks videos, have seen many of them. I got my starter bag of opal from Justin and then some follow up stuff from Riley Gunn. Like me, i think a lot of people get from Justin because of his teaching and entertaining videos on youtube. Both of those (small bags of pretty tiny stones) are pretty tough for me to do by hand because they tend to be pretty small stones to begin with (they often have great color though). Riley has now some larger stuff in his store that is well suited to doing by hand, larger and more grippable, and has at least some color. Some of those are pretty good. And, some not. Its pretty affordable too. His store is 53frogs on opalauctions. Justins larger rough opal tends to be great quality, and is priced that way.
I'm not trying to plug either person, but I have got opal from both of them. Other than SUPER slow shipping to the US, I'd have zero hesitation in making another purchase from both. Everyone here probably already knew all of that above, just my experience...lol...
I'll keep reading prior topics and posts so as to not be repetitive!

And, lest anyone think its all, hey just get some opal, do a little sanding, and out pops a gem!!!..... My last three, yes three in a row, have been complete duds. Zero, nada, zilch.... Sometimes unseen cracks, and sand just keep coming and don't stop until there's no opal left. I'm thankful that doesn't happen all the time. I mean, I DO enjoy the experience, but nothing any times in a row is not too fun. Especially doing it by hand. Just wanted to balance the deal a bit.
I'll laugh later, and hope the next one is a gem....lol...

We've got our fingers crossed for you, that the next one is the best one yet, and you might want to consider investing $20 in a nail salon tool lik this to save your fingers.


https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Electri ... 609&sr=8-2

Wow, that looks a lot like a dremel.... or dremels look a lot like that!...lol...

OK, so I found a small piece of Coober Pedy rough, 6.5 carats or so that Riley Gunn (53frogs on opalauctions) had sent me. I think it was as an example of what they were getting out of the ground at the time. Anyways I made a stone from it, only got 3. something carats, but Its all I could get. The dome IS a bit too high, I could not resist because color shone best vertically, from about 45 degrees on both sides. The material is similar to the shield one, don't know if its from the same mine or deposit. Same process as is now usual, fingers paid the price on this one.
OK, the fun is back (well, til the next dud).

Yes, they're like little dremels without as much power, but they do get the job done and save wear and tear on the hands.

That's another nice looking opal, and it's got good color visible even in the pics. It's understandable that you'd want the highest yield with all the color left intact, and I assume it's got visible color on both sides so you wouldn't want to take material off the back. So I wouldn't worry about the high dome, and if the color on the back is good enough I would put it in an open-back setting so it could be worn as a reversible pendant. Just a thought.