BY BOB RUSH

Templates provide a superb guide for grinding efforts.

In comparing the three opals together on the dop stick the difference discussed became evident.

In the past few years, Ethiopian Opal has become one of the most available and worked types of opal. It has brilliant colors, minimal fractures and produces much fewer problems with regard to orientation. The colors and their patterns are generally prevalent throughout the piece, so it isn’t difficult to orient these colors and shape the cab to retain the best pattern.

I decided to make a Brazilian agate piece with a center stone of rose quartz and three accent stones made with Ethiopian opal. Though the center stone was made from a piece of asteriated rose quartz from Auburn, California, the slice that I had wasn’t thick enough to make a sphere that I could utilize in determining where the star was oriented.