this week we endure problems
g'day and welcome to black opal direct my name is justin well today we're working on
a 64-carat knobby and it looks to me like it could have a really beautiful crystal in it
and when i look up to the light or i shine the flashlight through it there is a fair amount of
color that looks like it's clean but also there is sand blobs around it so i can't be 100 sure
until we get onto the wheel how good it's going to cut but that blue and green color looks like
it could have that gorgeous color on color effect so let's get on that wheel and have a bit of a
bit of a scout around and see if we can find where the color goes
alrighty so there is a lot of sand in this stone so there's a chance that this could be really not
that great um but i did have a look with the gem light let's have a quick look in the dark
inside and you can see that there's a fair amount of light travelling into the stone
so it has potential but i just don't know how much potential it's got
i mean you hold it from different angles now this show is showing light but it's
not necessarily showing that it has any inclusions inside and it could
very well do so even if we wet the outside of that piece so that we can see in a little bit easier
it still doesn't give us a good indication so if i shown the light there you can see there is
sand inside it but the sand is mostly on that side so whether it does does actually have some clear
areas to cut a nice stone that is the million-dollar or thousands of dollar
question so the best thing i think we should do to start with is just to start cleaning up the sand
and around the edges and i think we'll get a better idea
uh
so i can pretty much get all that sand um off the edge of that stone because uh
it really doesn't do the stone any justice so i'll just wear that down pretty quick
and then we're starting to hit some color so now i can take it just a little bit slower in areas
it really is very very pretty color that crystal color is
really nice it'd be it'd be so nice if we could get something gorgeous out of it
so
yeah see there's sand blobs inside right in there which is not great
sand blobs everywhere to so all of this side here i can pretty much take out all of that
because it's there's nothing nothing worthwhile the sand's just going to eat most of that
shhh
hmm
so
i think what i'm gonna do and it's not looking great there's a lot of sand in there but i think
what i'm gonna do is take that cap off like i usually do when it when i'm working on knobby opal
but this could be sliced into many pieces or it could be a carving because there's so much
sand it's like a labyrinth um and figuring out where where to find the stones i may be losing 90
of the color and and sand to try and find the stone in there so bear with me i'm going in
oh
there's so much sand yuck
shhh
so
i'm just chipping away a little bit at the sand just to see how far it goes in
but it's not looking good there is this sand right through this piece right through
i mean
it's really not looking good there's just so much so many inclusions inside
wow i just wasn't expecting that much from from the the light source showing how much light was in
going through it i would have actually imagined there would have been bigger cavities of color
but there isn't that's crazy crazy crazy crazy
i need time to think about this one
i haven't had this much sand in a long time
while it was a 63-carat knobby everywhere i look in there there's blobs of sand and
when i'm chasing open when i'm chasing stones out of um knobbies if there's this much sand
i really don't see value in polishing it as it is so what i really want to do is slice
it up and it's going to take a bit to figure out where to slice it but i'm going to go for small
stones because the color is nice but the really having in the inclusions it just doesn't go with
how i like to cut my opal i like to be cut beautiful jammer so
what i want to do to study it a bit and make some lines and put some slices into it see if we can
get some you know a couple of one characters out of there or something like that because
yeah that's it looks nice but it's just solidly full of sand with a couple of little windows
here and there of possibility so let's have another close look under the light can you tell
i'm starting to lose faith in this piece i'm not so sure it's going to cut anything at all
i really honestly thought there would be a few nice gem crystals cut out of this one
it seems the more i work on this stone the less i like it
and the less chances i have of cutting anything at all
i should have gone fishing today
oh man i just don't know
this is the nightmare this stone what a nightmare
you couldn't get more sand in a stone than this one
such beautiful color so much sand
what to do
so
all right i'm gonna slice i'm gonna slice this piece off first
yep right there i'll be back
when you're slicing through a piece you can feel the blade
cut faster when there's a lot of sand which is what happened here
the sand is way softer than opal and turns to mud
all right okay it's time for me to be humbled and accept defeat the knobby
was so much nicer as a specimen than it is now and everything did not go to plan it just goes
to show that it can happen to anyone when you least expect it and opal can beat you to a pulp
i could polish it as it is for now for a low-value specimen worth a few hundred bucks
can you tell i'm done for now until next time when i tackle another gem thanks for watching