well look at that color on the back that is incredible
g'day and welcome to black opal direct my name is justin well today we've got some
really beautiful little piece that i've put on the socials lately it's called a clean skin
knobby and i believe it's going to be pretty easy cut but there's one area that has more
more chance of a beautiful high dome and i'd like to make it a black crystal too because there's no
real patch it just has a really dark tint to it and i may be slicing this piece in two before
we even go ahead fur so we can cut possibly two stones but this one's gonna be fun because i can
see the color on color 3d effect that i love so much so let's get on the wheel and see how we go
all right this is the clean skin knobby i'm talking about it's beautiful piece
it has a really thick color bar on this side of the knobby and a thinner messier
color bar on that side of the knobby so my gem i was i'm imagining is going to be here
so it might be wise instead of grinding all of this away might be wise for me just to slice
that straight through but before i do i'm just going to clean it up a little bit more on the
wheel and see how we go because it could be all right all right let's get that wheel going
i just want to make sure that there's good
pattern and color which I can see just from that one little touch that that
pattern and color is nowhere near as good as that pattern and color over here
all right so we're we're wanting our gem right here is the best color and this side here has
a like a wishy-washy shinier color so it doesn't hurt to take a little bit away from that side
and see whether that pattern gets any better inside and it it doesn't really look like it is
so there we go not yet
not really but what a really good sign is that there is um some potch
or some darker color inside there as you can see so that's a really good sign that
it will be a black crystal or a black opal um and I just clean up just the good side
now good edges I just want to see how clean that color is and if you look at that there
that is magic color like really magic color that gorgeous 3d color on color that I love so much
all right I'm gonna slice it straight through there we're gonna have to because that's the best
color and I can either grind that away and there still could be some nice color inside there so
I'd rather just slice it and know that I've got that nice gem sitting there and go with something
if there is anything on that part so let's have a go with that just gonna take it through there
just taking that slice through there and you can see that I have just hit the edge of that
and that little white dot that white area has come right down on the stone so what I've done
is probably a pretty smart slice and when I take all of this off the top we should head down to a
little bit darker of a gem which I'm very excited about because that should be a gorgeous stone
so for a tester I can just take this down on this stone down to the darkness and you can see there
that it's starting to get quite dark in the in the play of color just a little bit more water going
all right so that was a good test let's see how it goes
now we'll work on this guy and we'll get it see if we can get a nice stain out of it
that is such pretty color beautiful color
wow
uh
all right I'm going in
shhh
foreign
let's
well look at that color on the back that is incredible that is awesome wow
so
oh what a gem look at this no potch and pure black opal that is awesome so where I sliced
it over here the color is really not quite as the pattern is not quite as strong so I'm going
to take that in a little bit on this side and we're going to make it an absolute perfect gem
this is going to be one high domed ripper of a jam
love it so I'm still just trying to get those sand spots out
wow look at that
so
well I didn't expect that that's for sure the color and pattern is better on the back
which happens seems to be happening a lot lately lately even better than the front
so this this one is most definitely going to be a double-sided gem a beautiful one
it's amazing the diversity of opals that come out of lightning reach from dark opals to white opals
like cooper pedy crystal opals which are the best in the world from lightning ridge
and the black opal but this piece has it all it's a black crystal opal
they're quite rare to be able to have a black crystal opal without any potch in it whatsoever
over the years out of all the thousands of gems I've cut I reckon there's only been
about 50 black crystal opals that I've actually cut so it is quite an anomaly when I see one
I'd like to make a high dome of this one but also double-sided so I can
make the best of both worlds having two different patterns to choose from
so
I didn't film but I did polish the back on this stone
so we've got a double-sided beautiful black crystal opal with two separate patterns
one of which is floral and the other side is flagstone and chaff
well wasn't that a beautiful cut I was so surprised with how
the back of the stone was probably stronger it looks stronger and better pattern than
the front where I was originally going for so let's see what it weighs the other little piece
I sliced off by the way it really is turned into nothing there's no there's no stone 3.16 carats
beautiful what do we think that's worth that's a gorgeous high domed gem black crystal opal so
black crystal has no potch in it whatsoever it's got a beautiful dark tint just like window tinting
with play of color so they're very very rare and this one is really quite dark it's around
the n2 to n3 sort of mark so beautiful gem and we're looking at around about two grand a carrot
so that's pretty much a six thousand dollar gem beautiful beautiful gem I'm really happy with that
so I hope you are too I hope you enjoyed that journey and I'll see you next time
you