I am a lapidariest whose primary interest is in opals. I have been cutting opals for over 25 years. At one time I cut opals for a Lightning Ridge miner where the most beautiful black opals come from. I also had my own opal mine here in Arizona back in the early 90s. The opal has a blue body color and there was enough precious opal showing to justify two years of back breaking (literally) work to try to recover enough to be at least self sustaining. I was working by using primarily hand tools and am now completely disabled with severe back problems. I cut a few stones when I am able and try to have good to top quality pieces. I also carve free form opals and am going to start trying to do some cameos out of boulder opal. I'll have a web site up soon with some of my work including natural gold nugget inlay on black opal, 22k and 24k gold pieces and fine silver (.999 fine) pieces that I fabricate.