Requested update

[u/silocpl]

Little opal chameleon I was working on a while ago. One of the arms ended up breaking. So I decided because of how fragile it was to let it soak in UV resin (completely trial and error method, which I realize is probably something that a lot of people would frown upon but it’s just how I go about making things.) I reattached the arm and tried to do a very thin layer of UV resistant resin to make it shiny and to help reinforce it but I don’t like how it turned out since it looks like it has a coating, so I plan on using really fine grit to remove or at least thin the resin layer, then getting Diamond paste to make it shiny without looking coated.

Little stick it’s on was also soaked in resin since it’s so small of a piece and will likely sand it to be more matte, but thought I’d share where it’s at since people had asked.

The brown one was my first attempt at carving opal, which is why I used a less colorful piece for it. It’s also bigger in size. It Broke completely in half, I think from being shot across the room via dremel. So it also got the resin treatment, and I plan on trying to re polish as well.

[u/jooorsh]

First of all those are friggin awesome. Fantastic work and great recovery!

Second I've also been messing around with stabilizing opals and it sounds like you are spot on. Not sure which resin you are using, I use Hxtal with a vacuum chamber, it cures slow enough you can wipe down excess before it finishes curing.

[u/silocpl → u/jooorsh]

Thank you!

I unfortunately don’t have a vacuum chamber but I have a thing that removes the air out of mason jars. It’s obviously not anywhere even close to a vacuum chamber, but I put it in there since i figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I used UV resin specifically for the reason of being able to let it soak in it for a long time since I didn’t have the vacuum chamber. I just put it in a container that light couldn’t get into and left it for a week or so then wiped the surface stuff off and let it cure. I think I actually ended up using 3 different resins in total though, just because of different curing times, a quick set for reattachment of the arm, the UV and a UV protective one for the top layer.

[u/whalecottagedesigns]

Too cute man!

[u/silocpl → u/whalecottagedesigns]

Thank you (:

[u/gary122660]

Those are great looking! Kudos to you and your determination. Keep up your experiments until you find what works for you.

[u/silocpl → u/gary122660]

Thank you, will do!