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welcome to Black Opal Direct my name's Justin well welcome to another round of me battling
opal this piece today is a magnificent piece from Andamooka um the seller I think sold
it to me as a piece of Coober Pedy but I do think it's Andamooka it's just got all of
the traits that is more conducive to be Andamooka than it is to be Coober Pedy so I'm pretty
much going to call this Andamooka Stone because uh I believe it's that's where it's from now
there is some pretty cool traits about this piece that makes it very special it has two
very distinct layers now one layer I tried here to explain myself properly about this
Stone and I turned it into one big gobbling mess so what I'm really trying to say is that
this piece has two color bars going on an angle and I need to make sure I orientate
this gem so that it faces properly the color won't show and you'll have to turn it on an
angle so that's a really important thing for me to do is to make sure that I've orientated
it properly now I know it's 35 carats but I really think I'm going to go for an eight
minimum eight carat oval on one side now there's lots of sand on the edges here on one side
that I have to work on first so I'm going to take that out on the wheel and then measure
I've got a little bit Potch as well but measure out where the best stone will sit and then
I can make a slice and slice the the piece in two and hopefully go for one beautiful
gem now I paid five thousand dollars for this Stone and it has the potential if it cuts
an 8 to 10 carat gem with the color I can see I can see double money in it and being
a crystal opal and not a black opal is a little less risk involved and the reason why is because
I can see inside it much easier than a black opal if I grab my gem torch and I shine it
into the stone you can see it glows it glows everywhere so it's a really good sign that
stone inside should be pretty clear now all I'm going to be concentrating on is where
the best color is so that's my main objective for this Stone okay these gem torches are
now available on our website go and check it out blackopaldirect.com and I'll leave
the link in the description so I'm going to work on this piece on the wheel just just
to clean it up and see where my stone could sit all right let's get the wheel going
[Music] All right I'm just going to start by taking that cloud off the top hopefully
it comes off
it looks like it's coming off but I might have to leave it a little bit in there before
I slice it then I can roll it over with the Dome but uh see what happens with this sand
on the other side my goal is to get my stone in here so I just need that to be clean
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color there so I'm pretty happy with that um there should be should be something decent
this little white area here I'm hoping will roll out and once I slice it so I think I'm
going to slice it I'm just going to take it a bit further down around this area and see
how much of that white cloud comes out [Music] thank you you can see the White Cloud goes
down a fair bit on this Edge
it's called cotton wool if it's from Andamooka we call that cotton wool cotton in white opal
can be really deceptive it can look like it's just on the surface but make its way very
deep into a stone and the reason you can't tell is because it's just as translucent as
the white opal itself [Music] so now that area is cleaning up that is really quite pretty
color so I'm quite excited about what we've got potentially as a nice Stone let's have
a closer look under the lightbox
the white cloud in this piece is going to make me hesitant about where to slice it so
I'm going to have to make the right decision when I go to slice but even though it's white
or Crystal opal you still don't know whether you're going to get a clean Stone because
these color bars are hard to follow so I've had a good study of the stone and really two
color bars are mixed mixed a bit here and there's a little bit of stuff going on but
I am thinking that maybe the Stone's going to be a little bit bigger than I thought so
I'm going to slice it off around about there and go for a much bigger possibility of a
stone and if it does then that makes a totally big difference again because there's not many
awesome big crystals around like that so let's make a mark and see if we can get this right
so I'm thinking just pretty much
pretty much a slice through there that's that's about it so then I can really work and I was
gonna I was going to bring it back to about there but looking at the color I think maybe
there and then I can work on one big nice big gem there rolling over that Dome and hopefully
getting a really nice gem that would be the plan the ultimate goal all right so this is
the big bit I'm going to slice this end off and then we will see what we've got slicer
here we come
slicing opal is a real finite part of the process when you slice it there is no going
back once you've done the cut you go with it
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you'll notice here that I do a slight Readjustment on my cutting line I just think I made a little
bit of a mistake by a couple of millimeters and you'll notice when I start to grind I
stop and I go ah did I do the right thing there I'm gonna actually change the not the
anger the spot but the actual direction of where the Blade's going through so not quite
on the line I drew I'm just a little bit off just to try and save myself a few more carrots
I'm starting to think that this is going to be a white opal rather than a crystal opal
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we've sliced it off and we can see that there's quite a nice color bar in there but I don't
think that's as strong as the color bar just above it but anyway we're going to work on
getting rolling these edges out and getting our Stone right there so let's hope we get
a decent gem out of it
[Music] it's really important to study an Andamooka Crystal piece because of these color
bars they can mold into each other and look like one color bar when in fact there could
be two or three different color bars and when you cut into the stone you're actually thinking
you're in one color bar and you're possibly in another very confusing and you need to
look very closely at what you're doing all the time I understood that Mumbai jumbo did
you [Music] sand spot really causing me a little bit of Havoc there I really wish it
would be out already and this Cloud here I don't know if you can see it very well on
the camera but there's a cloud right there that really needs to be gone it really does
in order for this to be an evenly spread beautiful patent Stone
it needs to be out
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and all the time I'm trying to orientate this Stone so that it's showing its best color
from the top see if it doesn't and it doesn't have as good a value so it's a hard one this
one
come on
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yes
now I go through these battles every day that I cut open or have battles with opal never-ending
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so that's that's about it
she's going to be about probably eight nine carrots I'd say the roll you can see the roll
is just on the top there so I've orientated it as well as I can without losing the color
so it's not that bad it's not not bad at all really pretty color of green gold blue red
a little bit of everything in there which I'm very happy about so let's work on the
other piece and see what happens on the other piece [Music]
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all right so I'm going to slice that through the middle get a nice high Dome stain sitting
there and whatever I can out of that side [Music]
two seconds later I'm back with a slice you can see was there and now we're just going
to work on this nice little high Dome Stone here [Music]
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and another probably another smaller one here get that sand spot off the top [Music] and
a little cushion cut so we've got three stones all up
that's pretty good [Music]
I'm really proud of how far we've come from humble beginnings as Opel Cutters for other
dealers to where we are today with their own Studio a team of the most wonderful people
I could ask for and a network of the most dedicated and true followers that anyone could
ever want you without you I'm just a guy cutting a rock in a shed what I'm trying to say is
I appreciate each and every one of you for coming along for the journey and sticking
with me even when I fall because you know what when I fall you fall too and when I fall
I learn and you do too which is where it all really counts so I just wanted to say thank
you for sticking with me through thick and thin and helping us as a community become
a voice for our favorite gemstone yes I've been told I wear my heart on my sleeve oh
well
so back to where it matters cutting this beautiful gem so I'm cutting this piece dry because
I found with the gem light that I had a few little inclusions left and it's very hard
to see those inclusions when the opal is wet so by cutting it dry just to begin with and
by the way wear a mask when you do this we don't want silicoses you must make sure that
all the sand spots are out first before we get the stone wet again so this is the easiest
way I know
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[Music] s out that what I thought was going to be Crystal opals our wide Opals only the
small little cushion cut would I consider a crystal opal since it's translucent enough
but anyway nevertheless they're beautiful Stones I enjoyed the journey and I hope you
did too
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