I'm taking a big risk this time [Music]
g'day and welcome to Black Opal direct my name is Justin well today I'm cutting a different
opal field I'm not used to cutting this sort of stuff I do remember my father cutting it
many years ago and learning a fair bit about it anyway so stop right there I thought I'd
give you a little bit of background about where this opal comes from Cooper Pedy was
known as the opal capital of the world where the opal gemstone was put on the world map
from there other opal fields are found but Cooper Pedy was the OG not only is Cooper
Pedy famous for its opal but it's well known for its underground lifestyle you can go shopping
go to church or even live underground it really is a great place to go and visit for a very
different lifestyle experience houses were built into the hills which they called dugouts
in the early days these underground dwellings were built to keep the town folk out of the
scorching summer heat and the freezing winter cold okay enough rambling on let's cut this
gem this piece here is some really really nice gem opal we're going to cut this in a
way that will make it a crystal opal and not a wide opal so when we shine a light through
the stone like this a lot of the time with Cooper PD opal you get a lot of milkiness
to it so you can't really call it a crystal opal if you can't see the translucency through
the stone so as you can see if I do this it looks quite white when I uh when I shine it
and the exposure of the camera is not really going to show that up but um you can see that
there is no images when you look through it so what we're going to do today is we're going
to draw some lines and slice the stone to thinner Stone so we're going to get more than
one stone out of this and hopefully by slicing it it will take that that milkiness more away
and make it more translucent to become crystals and the color in it is right through the stone
so I think we're going to just face it in the right direction and I reckon we're going
to get some top gems let's get into it so you can see um I think the best color sits
pretty much on that face there and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to slice this
Stone this piece so we're going to go for pretty much that kind of thickness all the
way around so that we get a glossier look to the stone on top so if I just keep drawing
on the piece so that I have a good guideline to where I want to slice it
that's pretty much pretty much it I might take it a little bit on this side of the line
but that's my guide and then we can work on you know one or two more stones on the back
of it the main stone is there and that's what we really want [Music]
so at this point, I don't actually know whether the opal is actually going to go Crystal off
to be able to considerate a crystal and I'm quite nervous and I bumped the wheel so I
just steady myself and try to cut this as best as I can
I stopped for a second and make sure that I'm cutting it in the right place
[Music]
it's crunch time have I cut beautiful crystals or have I just cut more smaller white Opals
and wasting lots of weight
so now I've sliced the piece into thinner slices you can see now that when I shine a
flashlight through the back of it there is as you can see images through it a lot better
you can actually see my finger through the back of it so it's a little bit more of a
crystal
beautiful play of color so what we might just do is shape these guys up and see what we
get I may even make that into two stones very pretty color [Music] Cooper Pedy opal is mostly
known as white opal so slicing this piece up is really quite a risk I didn't know whether
they were going to become clear but it seems to have paid off
you know some people are really lucky there's a story once of a guy that I once knew he
was a very famous minor in Cuba Petey and wherever he went he seemed to find opal no
matter what he did and he was driving his drilling rig through the fields of Cuba Petey
and it had just been a fresh downpour and he got his drilling rig bogged in the mud
so the only way out for him was to stick the drill down into the ground and push the truck
back out of the mud while he was doing that he struck opal some people just have it and
they always find opal and the same is in lightning Ridge some people really got to work hard
at it and other people it just falls on their lap well I don't believe it's luck I think
it's hard work and perseverance and eventually something pays off and it might be in the
form of an opal strike or a brand new job maybe even a promotion but if you work hard
enough at something and believe in yourself enough good things will come I'm not saying
there won't be challenges along the way but there will be a better attitude towards those
challenges
[Music]
it seems to be the smaller I go the brighter the crystals become so I'm really liking these
Stones they are beautiful [Music]
[Music] I thought I might just fast-forward this bit but then you can always skip forward
if you don't want to watch it but is quite mesmerizing seeing these beautiful gems come
to life and if you haven't subscribed yet I hope I've earned your subscription this
time [Music]
I remember cutting Cooper PD with my father years and years ago and he always made sure
that you choose the side that faces the best play of color and I think I've done this here
[Music]
this is what you call a lazy man slice please don't do it if you haven't had experience
in it otherwise you will waste too much opal but it is a very very quick and handy way
to split a piece of flat opal in half
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[Music] foreign [Music]
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[Music] this gem crystal stuff has turned out way better than I ever imagined foreign
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foreign
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foreign [Music]
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well that worked out really well I'm really happy with my slices and what these stones
have turned out like now the largest stone is the kingstone and it really has some really
good color I have now made it thin enough so that when I hold it up to the light you
can see that it's translucent which makes it a crystal opal so very happy with that
gorgeous 3.70 carats for that larger one that's around about a six and a half thousand dollar
gem really bright Crystal the triangle is a beautiful stone it weighs 2.15 carats and
uh it's around about a three thousand dollar gem really pretty I have polished the back
as well of all of these Stones I didn't film that part but I did polish them it gives us
the stones just that little bit more clarity which is really worth it this one is a beautiful
1.01 carat this is a gorgeous little gem perfect ring Stone really nice play of color all that
color on color it's about a fifteen hundred dollar Jam beautiful stone and the last two
small pieces pretty much a pair they both weigh 1.05 carats each uh together sorry not
each and they're about a thousand dollars for the pair beautiful beautiful crystals
so it is true Cooper Petey does create beautiful Crystal and I just cut them I can't believe
it thanks for watching we'll see you next time