this week we work on a beautiful black Crystal opal
well welcome guys this time we're gonna work on something that's a little bit unique and
it's not very often that you get a piece of opal that has no Potch in
it but is really dark and when this kind of phenomenon happens you get yourself a black
Crystal and that's what I'm hoping to cut right now is a is a black
Crystal that that has no Potch but it has a natural tint inside the the opal itself
now one thing that I really need to be careful of here is I've used the the flashlight to look
through the stone and there is some cracks and I think the cracks came from when it was
dug out of the ground the Digger actually hit the knobby and put some Shadows into it so I do have
to be careful and I'm probably going to have to cut it a little bit smaller than expected
so what's happened here is I've just studied it for a bit but what I'm doing is I'm just taking
all the sand spots and pieces of dirt out of the stone as wherever I can and funnily enough when I
was examining this piece I was looking at cutting it from the opposite side to what I'm looking at
now so this was the side I was going to choose and when I started working on the other side which I
thought was weaker color the pattern started to get bigger so and and nicer so I've really taken
the time to make sure that I can have both sides as a choice that I'm going to cut but it seems
that the opposite side is better than the side I had first chosen now that pattern there it's quite
nice Cloverleaf pattern but there's more beautiful flagstone and more depth on the other side
it's so there is a chance that I could cut a double-sided gem but I'm seeing that sand spot
there that I'm just trying to get out now that may cause some havoc in making it a perfectly clear
double-sided gem so we'll see how it goes and see where I get to when it comes to shaping the stone
as you guys know I'm not into freeform shapes so much I really like symmetrical shapes because I
like a perfect cut so this Stone even though it looks good now it still will end up being
an oval and also the reason it's going to be an oval is I can see some fractures in
it that I need to get out so this is going to be a little bit smaller than it looks now and
the reason why you take a fracture out of a stone or a break is because if you have a
break in a stone it's not worth nearly as much as a perfectly clean nice gem so I am going to
lose a bit of color but that will pay off in the fact that it'll be a perfect perfect gym
as I'm making this shape closer and closer to a perfect oval I'm
keeping an eye on the sand spot on the back the fractures in the side and the
um the ability to make a nice Dome on both sides and starting to turn out like I think
I can only really polish one side the other side is a little bit Sandy and that one sand spot's
going to kind of ruin that double-sided Stone I could do it but I will lose way too much color
so as you can see here I'm trying to shape the stone to as close as its finished shape
as I can by hand so that when I put it on the dopstick it will be a lot
easier to finish it off shape polish and get all those nice rounded edges perfect
but before I count all my chickens I just managed to spot a couple of cracks that are still there
in the side of that stone so I'm going to have to trim that in unfortunately so the stone is
going to get a little bit smaller but it has to be done you can't leave a fracture in a stone
I can just see a little bit of crack left in there that needs to come out and
certainly make me a bit nervous because now the Stone's starting to get a little bit too small
for my liking so anyway we'll work on it and roll that Dome a little bit and see if we can
roll it out instead of cutting the stone in and uh I think it seems to be working
it really just it really dumbfounds me how something can look like such a straightforward
cut and can still give you grief in the process of trying to get a beautiful gem out
you know I'm quite happy with it actually it's a nice black Crystal and it's going to polish
up a treat it just won't be the double-sided gem that I thought I would get you know it's coming
up to the opal Festival this week where I'll be traveling out to lightning Ridge to see a lot
of old friends but it's quite nostalgic because that's where my dad lived for 20 30 years and
I walked past his house where he lived and I do get a little bit teary sometimes because you know
I miss him a lot he he taught me everything I know and he was a great dad and I really wouldn't be
here right now if he hadn't taught me how to cut opal if he hadn't been in this industry I would
have probably done something else maybe being an electrician you never know I do feel really
lucky to be in an industry like this you know when somebody asks you what do you do for a living and
I say I'm an opal cutter they say wow I've never met an opal cutter before that's quite unique
and I really do enjoy being in this industry it's such a wonderful industry and the people
are beautiful and all most of them but what I'm finding is this is a dying trade this is a trade
that people aren't sharing their knowledge about opal and I feel honored to be able to share this
eyeball with you all this knowledge and so that it can be passed down from generation to generation
so uh because if it passes with my dad then it passes with me at least you guys get to see and
get to know a bit about Opel and keep the the romance of opal going I once had a crazy goal of
making opal more popular than diamonds and while we don't have the budget of De Beers we do try our
best to get as much knowledge and as much Beauty out there in the form of flex of color in opal
when it comes to color on color a black crystal is the epitome of beautiful color when you've got
flakes of gem color on top of each other with that 3d effect black crystals probably one of
the best types of opal to be able to display that kind of play of color it's so beautiful
really happy with this Stone I'm just evening up the back now this is a skill that my dad taught
me and took me many many years to perfect and I really haven't perfected it but I've got it close
I'm still yet to see somebody be able to cut as well as my dad did by hand
so this gem ended up being a 5.47 carat black Crystal opal it sits in the black opal category
just and it's magnificent it's a brightness of three with a beautiful medium Dome and I've priced
it around the three and a half thousand dollars which is quite nice for a 3D color and color gem
if you like the way I've done this video it's a little bit different let me know in the comments
and tell me what I could have done better thanks for watching see you guys next time