this week I cut an opal from a field you've never seen before beautiful
g'day and welcome to black apple direct my name's Justin
well I've got this piece that comes from the T-bone field out in lightning Ridge now that
comes from right behind the whole of the cooker and field and it's a long way out it's probably
an almost an hour's drive on the dirt past the coocoran field and it's really an a field that's
been around for many years and I've seen some absolutely Sublime opal come out of there so
um yeah it's one of the best fields that even when my dad was around we used to buy opal from
people who mind there and that's crazy good opal most of them were in witch's hats like
um not quite like this this is quite a weirdly formed nobby it's not quite a witch's hat it's
not quite a nobby so it's an interesting shape but it does have some really nice color in it and when
I shine the uh the gem torch into it it seems to be like it's got quite a thick color bar in it so
um it's going to be a tough one to cut because it's got a white cap but then it's got gray potch
on the other side and I'm wondering whether I should cut the gray patch off and make this a
beautiful Crystal if it faces well enough or whether I should keep that Potch on and make
it dark or close to a black opal so I really I'm not sure until I get on that wheel but um let's
get on there and have a bit of a clean up and see where we go because She's a Beauty I think I hope
so
let me get my my more powerful glasses yeah so I can see the stone better
let's have a good look at this guy so you can see it's got some really nice color there but um
it's really hard to tell next we've shown the light in there and we can Shine the Light in
there you can see that there's quite a lot of glow going on in the stone if I turn that light
off it probably would work better you see there's a lot of glow going on there so um
yeah there's a good color bar there that looks like it could be a decent Stone but
this Potch here doesn't look like it's going to go black inside so I'm just going to rub it in a
little bit and it might and if it does then the possibility of a black opal is is on the cards
but right now it doesn't look like it looks like more of a dark or a crystal opal so let's start it
the name of the game in opal cutting is to cut
most or all of the inclusions out you possibly can for a beautiful clean gem
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at the moment I'm just cleaning around the edges so I can get a really good idea of
how that color bar is formed inside spots and inclusions can be inside there at any time and
even with a gem torch you can still sometimes get it wrong but this one looks really clean
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look at that point
so there's a tiny little darker patch in the middle but really it's not not going to cut off
and the way that color bar runs you've got to pick on this side and then it pins down on this
side so I might just see what the color looks like a little Telltale picture of one of them
but if I take it down on this side I've only got this this much below
which means that it's not going to be a thick Stone on that side
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besides the lovely hair this color bar looks like one of the cleanest I've seen in quite a long time
so my Heights are pretty high and I do think the color could possibly be absolute gem quality
so I think I really need to take this white cap off before I do
anything about that for us just to see how good the color is and then um
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do we get a beautiful gem or do we get a flop
so far the color's looking nice
but the sand is not my friend as yet
such beautiful play of color but that white cap hasn't quite come out yet and underneath it,
is lying blobs of sand how far is this sand going to go in this time
oh
it comes out cleans up
so bright and strong
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spots in the middle again giving me havoc there's three main sand spots in here
that could be the difference between a nice Dome or a very low Dome they gotta come out
in because the pattern is not as good up here it is everywhere else so
looking like a very nice Stone may be quite large
long as that sand in the center comes out
we'll be on a winner if we can get that sand out
I think the stone has made its mind up before me about the clutch on the back I have to leave that
on there because if I don't drink the oven's going to be too thin and the reason is because
that sand sitting in the middle is going too deep if I take all of that sand out and then
take all the potch off the back it's going to be really thin so yeah the stone has guided me to
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some of you out there comment that I use way too rough a wheel for the Opals I cut and to be honest
with you I have trained myself over the years to push at different pressures for different areas
of the opal so if I'm pushing on to cut a Sandy piece out I can push a little bit harder but if
I'm just fine shaping and and just you know trying to get the shape perfect or a nice Dome like I'm
doing now I push a lot softer and it really makes a big difference when cutting a beautiful gem
the wheel I'm using at the moment is at 240 grit sintered wheel and it can take a lot of opal off
very quickly so my pressure is is Paramount when I'm using this wheel it's also a wheel that's fine
enough so I can get the scratches out when I go to polish it quite easily still in the face come on
I think we're pretty good look at that that's a nice 5 carat gem right there beautiful gem too
very very happy with that that is towards
now that the pressure's off and I've got most of the sand out of the face
it may happen that I have a little bit of residue sand in the middle of the stone that
has to stay there by the end of the Polish we'll see by the time I get through it all
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I wasn't expecting it to be as bright as this with the potch on the back so um when you get dark
Opals of this brightness it's really really does hold its value quite well so what does she weigh
4.56 carats that's nice 4.56 for there's an $8000 gem two grand a carat approximately maybe
a little bit over really bright color beautiful floral flagstone and chaff pattern all in the
one stone that's a beautiful gem it really looks at you from every angle as well I'm really happy
with it sitting on the body tone it sits around about the dark opal if I hold it up there's one
side that's a bit clearer and the other side's not so it has to be a dark opal and not a crystal opal
and is very pretty so you can also get these on my website they're available at the moment
so yeah I hope you enjoyed that journey and I did definitely what a beautiful gem
thanks for watching and I'll see you next time