Opal Cutting Service Terms

These terms apply when a customer provides an opal to Australian Opal Cutters for cutting, shaping, polishing, assessment, or related work. By providing the opal, the customer accepts the natural risks of the service.

Inherent risk

Opals are natural gemstones and may contain hidden fractures, inclusions, sand, potch, unstable layers, or other weaknesses that are not visible before work begins. These features may change the final result during cutting, shaping, sanding, polishing, or handling.

Possible changes to the stone

Australian Opal Cutters will take reasonable care and will attempt to retain as much colour, pattern, face, size, and value as reasonably possible. The customer accepts that colour, pattern, size, weight, face, polish, or value may change during the work and that the final result may differ from the expected outcome.

Cutter judgement

The customer understands that the opal cutter must make professional decisions during the work, including how much material to remove, whether to saw, where to orient the face, how to manage inclusions, whether to continue, and when to stop. Decisions made by the opal cutter are final.

Customer-supplied opals

When a customer supplies their own opal, the customer confirms that they own the opal or have authority to provide it. Australian Opal Cutters does not guarantee any particular value, yield, colour result, shape, polish, size, or weight outcome for customer-supplied opals.

Turnaround time

The expected turnaround time is approximately 4 weeks from acceptance of the opal and confirmation of the work required. This is an estimate only and may vary depending on workload, stone complexity, stone condition, requested work, and any issues found during the service.

Booking changes and cancellations

Booking changes should be requested as early as possible. Changes are subject to staff availability, workshop scheduling, and whether work has already started. Once work has started, the customer may not be able to cancel or change the requested work. Costs for work already performed remain payable.

Carving not included

Standard opal cutting costs do not include carving. Carving is a difficult and time-consuming specialist process and is only available on an ad hoc basis. If carving is requested, Australian Opal Cutters will review the piece and provide a separate quote based on the work required.

Acceptance of terms

By providing an opal to Australian Opal Cutters for this service, the customer accepts these terms and agrees that Australian Opal Cutters may proceed using the cutter's professional judgement. These terms apply in addition to the store's general website terms and any written terms provided at booking.