I really have not been doing much, washing rough or sawing gem silica,I sell it by the box on ESTY at the copper ore price as I pick out the gem silica to sell as such by itself.
remem cutting ovals and just the brightest will double your cutting losses (as if i measure? my opal & wood probably runs over 99% by weight cut off the gem).
Flats from the finer wheels were my nemesis cutting.
Personally I like fracture sealing the break faces for the first & possible the only stone out of the runners up. Then when you have so many, its easy to just category them as 5 -10-15-20-50-100 & by the piece opals for cabinets, wet opals i like jars over rubber corked tubes.
Glen has a opal carving up at the mine of uncrazed crystal opal in water of a turtle inches across with good play of color, that would craze probably if it was ever drieds, but done completely wet, they look great with no matrix on them.
As I retire, this would be the last social i clicked out of to never come back.
We've all babbled in the threads about how were doing things over the years, but keeping it fresh is whats important.
Personally i just Star bonded some thin crazy vein onto jb weld, opposite order then cut them apart with shear until i can get the wheels to it.
I HEARD this one. Really its just a soft "pop" or quick "pffft" sound. 
I kept the pieces and I'll examine both procedure and micro examine the pieces tomorrow. 