this week we work on a little piece that could have huge potential
g'day and welcome to black opal direct my name's justin well today we've got one little tiny piece
and it's quite a challenge to get a gorgeous gem out of a small piece and a couple of reasons is
because when you're holding it on the wheel it's actually quite small and you've got to be nimble
in the fingers to be able to work the stone on the wheel this one has some amazingly bright color
and the color bar looks quite thick but it is wedging down on one side where the sand starts so
we don't know how much of a stone i know that there's a small stone in there but i don't know
how much of a stone how big it's going to be but whatever comes out i do believe is going to be
phenomenal color so let's get on the old special wheel and see if we can cut a cracker gem
excited about this one forgot to tell you all about the new table in our workshop um i have
happily uh got some legs on this i'm really stoked about it and i did do a post on youtube and talked
about it a lot of people said they didn't like the legs um and they i should have chosen some
wooden legs and made it all really beautiful now i wanted it to match in with the legs of the bench
and the whole of the studio now we can change the legs anytime in the future
that's no problem but also i needed casters and i needed this to be able to be moved around
easily so it's on wheels so we can move it out of the way and back into shot if we need to so
for now it's perfect for what i want so but thank you for all the comments
whether you liked it or not i appreciate all of your input so let's now get on the wheel
all righty well we've got the sand here which really can be quite painful for
getting a nicer larger stone because that sand may go
all the way into there and that may be my only chance of a stone so um
nevertheless it should be bright it should be a bright little gem
but i'm hoping for i'm hoping for or a carrot 20 carrot and a half would be brilliant but um if
we don't get that we um i should still be happy with that type of color it's pretty magnificent
all right i'll get that machine going and let's see what happens
so the sand's not being kind as yet
you can see there's a tiny little bit of color showing up right there
what is good about this is i can see that there's some poach
which is black so that potch turns black inside which is a really really good sign
and just underneath it you can see the color bar sitting right there so there is hope that
there is something really decent in this piece you just got to be sand free let's go
i think we need to uh see what's happening on top there to see whether the color faces
so i think it's that time i'm going in
this part of the process is the most exciting part
when you actually get to see what comes out of a rough opal it's pretty much what i live
for and it's this moment that tells you whether you win or you lose in the game of opal cutting
this little piece is trying to be difficult but i know
there's something nice inside so i'm gonna persist let's take its top off
emerging is quite a nice sized gem and it looks like i'm going to get a decent dome as well
but still you can never count your blessings yet there could be a sand spot that you didn't see
or a crack or some kind of line that may show up once the stone dries out so
it still is up in the air whether you've got yourself a nice gem or not
it's really important to get a perfect or close to perfect shape of what you want before you put
it on a dopstick it makes life so much easier later on down the track and it's looking like
this stone's going to be a little bit bigger than i first thought you got to be happy with that
quite a nice dome as well look at those greens yellows oranges and blues so that turned out
quite nice i think we are over the uh one point whatever carrot like it's going to be over a
carrot this time i'm sure of it so just going to give it away quickly and just get an idea yeah
there you go look it's 1.90 carats at the moment so by the time i finish cutting this and polishing
it does come down a bit fair bit further will be around about i'd say the 1.5 carats so what i was
hoping for um and i'm pretty happy about that so i guess it's now time to cut the stone polish it
it's reflection time every time i end up cutting a stone or polishing it i think of my dad
because he taught me everything i knew and i replaced my blowtorch with my dad's lighter that i
found in the cupboard a few months ago and thought i'm going to use that he's such a cool little
zippo that i gave to him on his 60th birthday so welcome to the opal cutting family mr lighter
there's something about opal cutting that's hypnotic and romantic in a kind of way where
you know you're creating something that somebody is going to enjoy for the rest of their life
whether they get it set in jewelry or keep it as a keepsake to hand down to the next generation
these beautiful gems are a really nice way to show your love and pass down
to loved ones as something that they can remember you by like my father did for me
you know people say they miss the old workshop but that workshop was just bricks
the main reason you watch is to see opal come to life i'm still the same person the machines
are all the same the sound is average but but essentially everything is still the same
i really appreciate you for being there on the journey with me and seeing how we grow and morph
it's like we've all been on this journey together blow by blow
between the winners and the losses you and i did this together so i just wanted to check in and see
if you subscribed i really do appreciate it when you do but if you don't want to you don't have to
as i come to finishing polishing this stone i want to point out that
the little stones are just as important as the big stones because it doesn't matter
about size it matters about story and provenance and these gems have it all
and it's time to take him off the dopstick
you have no idea how often this happens
every opal takes us on a unique journey and this one didn't let us down it went from a nice piece
of rough to a 1.32 carat black opal with a body tone of n4 and a brightness of a b4 and the value
of this stone is around about the two and a half thousand dollars really happy with the way it
turned out and will make a brilliant ring stone thanks for watching and we'll see you next time