I'm Justin, and this is black opal direct. My family have been teaching and exploring opal since
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g'day, and welcome to black opal direct. My name is Justin. Well, this week, we've got a beautiful
stone to cut, and it's not a black opal, but it does come from lightning ridge. Now some people
think, oh, this is a Coober Pedy rough opal or an Andamooka rough opal, but uh, the lightning ridge
can create all of the types of opal that any other field can create except for boulder opal. Maybe
somebody's found some bold oracle but not much anyway, but uh yeah, this one's a lightning ridge
one, so what a pure awesome specimen nice thick piece of seam opal, and right through the guts of
it is a really thick color bar, so we're going to have fun exposing one of the sides to cut a really
nice white opal gem so uh let's not waste any more time and let's get on the wheel and have a go.
Can you tie a bow? You can do it. Can we do it?
So here is our special little piece,
32 carats. Look at that beautiful color bar going right through it.
so our plan is to face it from one side and take
one of the sides off to see how it faces from the top
and I think
we can take it from this site, so when I look at the color from the edges,
I don't see as much red when I hold it this way as I do that way
All right, so what we're going to do is because the edges are all clean,
we don't have to do much to it. Let's just take it straight down see how it turns out.
I really am hoping for some nice blocky patterns, some nice large flags flagstone patterns. The
ultimate would be seeing some harlequin pattern, but that's like one in a million chance so
a little bit of there's a color bar just on top there's a little bit of residual color
very in and not worth pursuing
just
we're coming close to the color now
let's hope that that um the cobalt really shows up as well as it does from the side
here it comes
see
so
color looks okay. Actually, I don't know if it's as bright as it is from the side
Oh yeah, that's quite pretty. It's quite nice to look at that.
very cool
And give it a nice shape. I think it would lend itself to a drop shape.
so
remove that
she's
Now I can roll that dome
around the edges. It's all pretty safe and gets a nice down because that color bar is really thick.
round up the back a little bit
There we go. It's pretty much ready for the dot stick.
All righty well, this is quite a white opal. This one's not considered a crystal,
and it looks too rare. I reckon it's going to be around the n8 so
let's find a nice big stick since it's quite a large stone
A few people have asked me how long does the wax actually last on a dop stick,
and that really depends on you. If you clean and wash all the cerium oxide off the wax after you've
used it every time, the wax will stay clean, and you can use it more often, but if you do wash it,
you should be able to get about 10 uses out of it before you have to top it up with some new wax.
ready for the cutting oil
This is a pretty simple cut one. I love it when there's a straightforward bar. You can get
a pretty good idea of what you're going to get or how big you might get it so
Did you know that my favorite coffee is espresso with a dash of soy milk but too much in the day
can make your hands shake to the point where I have to call off any cutting for that day,
so usually I don't go past one a day
steady hands are extremely important when it comes to cutting opal I was supposed to cut this opal
into an oval? Still, I had two coffees, and that sent me right over the edge. What was I thinking?
the wheels I use here are downgraded diamond grits from a 500 grit to a 600 grit
to a 1200 grit, and then I go over to a cerium oxide which is on a felt wheel,
and that's where I make my final polish
So that turned out pretty nice. As a 32 carat piece of rough, you're usually losing around
about 80 per cent of the weight of a stone in the rough to get your opal,
and this turned out to be just under 10 carats, so it's around about right we've lost about um
a third of them or two-thirds of the way so it's ended up being a beautiful 9.72 carat stone
and it's an n7 I thought it was an n8, but it's closer to an n7 on the scale still a white opal
medium diamond the brightness is three now it has a bit of flagstone a bit of floral in there
a little bit of broad flash and has orange, green-yellow a little bit of red and I think
for the stone 9.72 carats I reckon we're looking at about three and a half grams for the stone
beautiful pendant piece anyway I hope you enjoyed that one and I'll see you next time ciao for now.
you