do i stuff this up or do i have a winner
I'm justin and this is black opal direct my family have been teaching and exploring opal since 1961
click the subscribe button and enjoy as we dive into the best gem in the world black opal g'day
and welcome to black opal direct my name is justin today we have a monster black knobby
and it has some really nice color in it and I hope we can cut a really big gem out of it
it has also a little bit of color on the back that we have to investigate before I cut that
big stone because there's some nicer color but I think it's more sun flash color which makes it
not so desirable anyway let's get into this piece and see if we can cut a nice gem or two
so let's just have a quick look at this piece with the flashlight all right so I turned all
the lights off you can see well you can kind of see that underneath this pot here on the top you
can see that there's clear color underneath and that's making that flashlight shows it quite clear
and when I shine it all the way around it seems to make it all the way around the whole stone
besides this sand spot so I may have to risk this beautiful color on top to go for a big nice stone
underneath and that has its possibilities so let's keep playing and see what happens
okay stop stop stop stop stop stop before I grind any further I really can't waste that
beautiful color on top just by grinding it down that would be really sad so uh what I'm going to
attempt to do because I think this piece is thick enough I am going to attempt to slice this piece
um in half just so that I can see what color bar is below and probably get a nice black or black
crystal off the top or a couple so that's what I am going to do now so I need to draw a line around
the edge so I can have a guide of where I'm going to slice and we'll go with that drawing a line
around is just a guide I'm going to approach it from every different angle to get exactly right
so I am concerned about this stone because it's so big i am worried about part of me I'm worried
about this blade bending or grabbing because when you cut so deeply into a stone and this is really
big it can grab on the sides of the piece and it can break the blade also as well as break this
in half or into pieces so it's a real struggle to try and slice something this large and I'm
a bit nervous about it because that's really nice color worth thousands on the top and there is the
possibility of below-being something even more special so I just I'm not sure what not sure
i don't really have another choice other than to do this so I've got to pretty much
bite the bullet and um and get it done but the risk
is huge because it can break quite easily so I've got to have some really steady hands
is the blade long enough
I hope this blade doesn't bend
I probably should have changed to a new
blade
genius is taking a long time
oh looks like I missed the mark
oh my
holy
I'm holding my breath
I had to stop
oh my goodness this is gonna did you hear it grab that that wheel just grabbed on I started to bend
inside the stone I had to take the pressure off because if I kept going right then that flavor's
gonna break so the last part is now I've been all around the outside so there's like a little
stem in the middle and the little stem in the middle is the hardest part because
now that I've changed the blade angles on it the blade can grab really quite easily so
I've got to be steady with this one and try and get it right through without any hassles
beautiful color there
oh okay we're good holy Dooley that was um that was a big slice that's it's a long way
through that piece if you look at it your blade can catch especially if you're using a slicer
that doesn't have vices to hold it steady you're using bare hands so I was pretty lucky with that
and I think I did slice it pretty much through the right area
if you see I slice through a lot of potch but on the back of the piece just underneath that
potch when I grind it down I believe that this part of the color is going to get bigger so
that's that should be pretty good and also the top piece I may be able to get more than one stone out
of it so I'm really happy with um with the way it turned out and now we just got to get on the wheel
on the 90 grit again because it's still a big piece and we're gonna um see what stones come out
all right so let's have a look at this piece and see a beautiful pattern there
and underneath here the color goes a bit further and underneath there the color goes a bit further
so if I was to grind some of that away chances are the piece will be bigger you can see there's
a bit of color already starting to show up there this sand is going to kill some of it
and you can see that color already coming through
yes
oh look at that oh it's cleaning up
that is crazy
holy dooley
oh my goodness i got a like a 20 carat stone off the bottom that's amazing all
i need to do is get that potch out now yes expecting a stone this big what look at that
hello i have to give you a close-up look come to check it out
I was expecting something on that bottom bar but nothing as huge and as beautiful as this
all right we're just going to have a go at the other piece and you can see where the
residue color from the second bar sitting there and this is where I'm going to go for
my stone most of this is eaten by potch and sand so let's have a go at cleaning it up
so so what would be ideal is if this sand came out
oh my goodness it did too
everything's going right for me today I love these days
so
uh I think it's important now that I stop right now and I go on the finer wheels because this
thing this wheel just takes off so much opal so quickly so we're gonna swap machines now
I'm really happy with this this is actually let's get the scales and see how much it weighs
all right I'm really excited about this big stone because
once it's cut it'll be probably three or four more carrots off but for now
something's wrong with it it's broken
it works all right let's test it out see what it weighs this big one what does it weigh
38 carats 38.75 so it'll probably be around part of me around the 30 carats finished
so very very happy and what I wasn't um really accounting for was the mama bear
and baby bear as well so without slicing that off the top I never would have got
that stone I just would have ground it away and having to take that little nodule off the edge
so I could cut my little oval here very very happy so we're going to start cutting it now
now the stressful part of the cutting process is done
I can relax and enjoy shaping curving and watching these gems come to life
while open cutting it gives me a chance to think in my own space to recharge and reminisce
on some of life's accomplishments it always puts me in a good mood just like meditation
so all right so we finished we've finished these beautiful stones and I'm really really happy
with the way the biggest one turned out absolutely gorgeous color and I didn't expect to be well
I was hoping for it to be good underneath but we took a risk and uh sliced right through it
and this one ends up being 32 carrots so really happy about that 32-carat nice gem black opal
the next one was 15.62 which this is the piece that I sliced off the top
and if I ground it down we'd have no stone so it was important for me to start slicing that stone
in pieces but uh just it was a bit of a risk and the small stone is 1.12 carats so
it's quite it was worth saving this little stain that's for sure
so very very cool I'm very happy with that now for a price what do we come to
hmm 32 carats
let me get a calculator
oh yeah so I'm thinking that this is 32 carats
at about 500 a carat which is a lot so 32 times 500 that's 16 000 for that beautiful gem so
really really happy about that gorgeous stone didn't expect it to be expensive as that the next
one is 15.62 now that's the piece I sliced off the top and 15 15.62 times I'd say 300 a carat
300 4600 so pretty good where it's adding up quite quickly and the little 1.12 is about a 500 gem so
I think we've done pretty well this time and I am super stoked glad I got to share it with you
and hopefully we get to do it all again next week thanks for watching and I'll see you next time
you