g'day and welcome to black opal direct my name is Justin well this week we've got a
piece of seam opal that is actually quite unique it's it's not like your usual seam
it has a gorgeous color bar with some pots just sitting on the pot top
of the piece it's like it's been painted on so all I'm going to be really doing is just
taking that little bit of potch off the top and by the shape of this it could turn out to be just
a nice cushion cut gems it's not going to be a black opal because there's no of the black watch
on the back is not touching the color so I doubt it's going to be a darker stone but anyway let's
get on there and see if his face is up pretty I'm looking forward to seeing what pattern it becomes
that water going
I'm just going to bring it in on the edges a bit more so this mossy pattern here really
is not as valuable as the pattern on top so I'm going to forego that pattern
and just take it around to the cleaner cleaner edges
take that sand off that end
pretty close there can take actually I'll leave that corner on there for now
and um yeah let's let's take his top off
there's a bit of pin fire on the top as well
that's an interesting stone
all right so I'm going to take that corner off now there really isn't much to it
bring that in a little bit
the sound unfortunately cut out on me while I was recording right now so I'll just have
to run you through personally what I'm doing and it looks like really I'm going for a cushion cut
I do need to take a fair bit of that back off as well and I am cutting the inclusions out of
the edges just to make it a nice clean stone and this one I'm going to round the edges a little bit
so it's a softer cushion cut and not such a hard squared cushion cut and you can see that there's
some slight pin fire over the top of that mossy pattern below which is quite nice
I'm working on a 260 grit wheel it's a sintered wheel which means that the diamond is impregnated
up to five millimeters into the wheel so it'll last me pretty much a lifetime
just like other wheels I've had for the last 30 years and still haven't worn out
now that I'm taking all the potch off the back I'm not sure whether
it's going to be a dark opal or a crystal opal we'll have to wait and see at the end
so rounding and smoothing the back and leaving no sharp edges helps you when you go to put
the stone on the top stick you don't you have a lot less chance of chipping a gem
when you round everything off and take the corners away it also helps when you set the stone in a
piece of jewelry if you have a nice rounded back the jeweler will like you for making the stone
a much more easier set than something that's lopsided or sharp or thick
and there we have it a nice cushion cut dark opal
you may notice in the background on the wall there's a new painting
and it's actually a painting of my father that looks very similar to what he actually looked like
in an abstract painting of course but I was given it to me by a very good friend who's had it for
the last seven years and when I was in lightning ridge they said it's time and I knew exactly
what they meant when they said it's time and I nearly cried because I was so happy to get that
painting it's one of my most cherished paintings of my father and he reminds me of him every day
so
this stone actually didn't turn out quite as well as I thought but there was an inkling because the
color bar wasn't quite as thick as um as it should have been there wasn't the chance to roll the gem
so well but still it's turned out to be quite a nice stone I mean i rounded that cushion cut so
it's a little bit more of a pleasing ring stone but I still got the greens and the golds in it
it's also got just over the top of the green and girl broader pattern it's got some pin fire going
across the top so that gives it a little bit of a 3d sort of color on color look so what is a way
two 6.27 carats six times it's around about a fifteen hundred dollar gem and the reason it's
not a not a it's what is a crystal if you hold it up you can see through it so it is a crystal
I thought it was more of a dark oval but when I hold it up to the light I can see actually
my finger through it so it's considered a crystal so a 6.27 carat crystal and it's
around about the 1500 so there you go hope you enjoyed that and I'll see you next time