sometimes i change my plans halfway in
i'm justin and this is black opal direct my family have been teaching and exploring opal since 1961.
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i started filming cutting this piece i was going to make a really cool carving
of a map of australia out of this piece and it didn't quite go as planned so
some of the areas of where australia would be is going to be chipped off so it doesn't quite
work out for me so i've changed my plan and i'm going to still carve this piece
it's got some nice indents that need to be undulated but i am going to slice it right
down the middle because there's a potch line that came out while i was cutting
right down the middle so we're going to slice it in two and make two stones out of it
which will be still very pretty red color so let's go with through the process and hope you enjoy
there was only one reason why i decided to slice this rough
it was because of this piece it was the only area on the whole chunk of opal that was thick enough
to guarantee me a nice gem so i had to go for it
after working with some other pieces from this same parcel i realized that the chance of this
piece staying large were diminishing quickly the colors were only lightly painted on by mother
nature herself and it was really just a tease and as i ground each piece i was seeing color
disappear before my plan is to dremel out that hole and if the sand comes out and the whole
and the color cleans up very good if it doesn't we're going to have to probably chop it again
as soon as i touched with the dremel onto the opal the color disappeared along with
the sand so it just told me that the sand was infused into the color bar
and there's nothing really i could do about it that's pretty much it time to slice
now we can shape it shape them both a bit more again
well that was um from what we were going to get was a massive map of australia i'm actually
super happy with what has happened because i've got one stone here that's 11 and a half carats now
that has superb bright red orange and it makes pretty much it's worth what i thought the map of
australia be worth so i'm really really happy about that plus we've got a few extra little
stones now this type of opal is what i need to explain why from one big piece did it turn into
a smaller piece and um that type of opal when you get pits in the top and sand spots this the color
bar doesn't actually carry underneath and a lot of other stones that i've actually tried on this
the same stuff wherever i've ground down to try and take that sand out
the colors just disappeared and there's no way of getting that color and the sand out um
to keep it clean so there was no way i could actually get a nice stone so slicing it up was
pretty much the only way to go and you know what i'm super super happy with that stone because
such bright broad flash you don't get them very often and actually i think
in my stock i don't actually have one so it's nice to have a nice stone with such
brightness because it's a brightness of four to five it's a really really strong brightness so
i can't wait to finish it off and show you the finished product because it's gonna be beautiful
you know it never gets old cutting opal there is a lesson in every piece i cut
and the outcome is different every time like a lucky dip combined with a bit of experience
it makes for an exciting adventure in my humble garage
i used to sit here by myself hour on hour day on day in my own thoughts but with the internet
i can share all of this with you as small adventure as it is i am honored to birth a gem
that really only starts its journey when it goes to its new home where it becomes a family heirloom
and gets handed down from generation to generation i feel lucky to be part of that
well they worked out really beautiful i'm so happy with this the first one i took a fair
bit off i said it was 11 carats when it was a rub but um i took a lot off the back because you can
still see it's quite thick but not as thick as it was so it looks a lot nice pleasing stone and i
didn't cut an oval so it comes to 7.40 carats and that golden orange and red broad flash pattern is
just to die for almost it looks a little bit like ammolite and um you can see the formation
from years ago there's bubbles in the color it's just it's magnificent anyway i put a value of
around about 5000 bucks on it which is really you know it's so bright that color is so bright so
happy about that the next one's a 2.71 carat i did cut that down and down and down and ended up being
an oval but it was much larger now everywhere i cut that sand would eat into the color
and there'd be inclusions in the face now there still is one inclusion in the face
just i had to leave it otherwise it would have just ended up being nothing so that's a 300
stone quite a nice little gem there the next one is that freeform drop shape is 1.12 carats and
that's around about it to 250 stone that ended up clean and um the last one's a 1.54 carat
gem and it's around about the 300 as well so i'm really happy with the big piece and i'm
you know we'll make some decent money out of that one i hope to see you soon thanks for watching
you