today we have a knobby opal from lightning ridge that we're going to cut and i think
that this is going to be way better than it actually looks i'm justin and this is black opal
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enjoy as we dive into the best gem in the world black opal so when it comes to knobby opal
knobby opel is pretty special this type of piece is a perfect representation of a knobby
opal from lightning ridge it has a little bit of potch and sand on the back of the knobby
it has a really nice clean color bar going right through the middle of the knobby
and then it has a white cap on the top and the white cap is like a matrixy sort of porcelain
cap and it's a natural formation that happens with australian lightning ridge opal and usually
the really good color sits just underneath that white cap so that's what we're going to plan on
doing today is finding out whether there is some special color underneath that white cap or not
so without any more wasting time let's get on the wheel and see if it works out
all right so this piece really doesn't look like much at the moment and
if my hunch is correct this is going to be pretty amazing now um we have a few issues where
there is a possibility that this white on the top could could go into the color bar
in in a couple of spots making that color bar really thin it's a possibility but
we don't know for sure until we open it up a bit more now firstly i'm going to
take that excess knob knobby off because i don't think there's any color there at all
and i think also the sand is beating it all around there so
let's see what happens with the flashlight in there so you can see pretty much all around
there is some glowing light in there which makes the color bar
look like it's nice and clean now we don't know for sure whether it is
but uh that is the plan anyway hoping that we can cut something really decent out of this stone
all right so we're going to turn the wheel on get that noise going we're gonna get some water on it
there we go ready to go
all right so first and foremost we need to make sure where that color bar is going to be sitting
and how much of the knobby is going to be color bar and my
my thoughts is it's probably going to be around there and this will probably get taken out by
potchen sand so let's get on there and have a bit of a go now we've got the water going
now sometimes these kind of knobbies can surprise you and this can have color in it
but it's not looking really that great right now
and i i did kind of predict that this area would not have any color
and if it did it would be beaten by sand which is pretty much that area there
all right as predicted you can see let's see this is all
just where the color bar is maybe just starting and this knobby or nodule on the end
has um has broken up that color bar a bit so i just need to take it in a bit further there
you can see that sand is starting to come into that so hopefully it comes out pretty soon
and as i predicted you can see this this uh this patch here when i said it might be
clean or straight you can see that dips down
so that's what i'm afraid of to lose because the color bars are not that thick so if this stays
like that we're in a bit of trouble so i need to keep coming in on that side just a little bit more
and hopefully it straightens out all right so now you can see that that color bars
that that dip right there is starting to come out so it's a lot less than it was i might just
take it around the edges just to give it a bit of a clean up and give us a bit of a better idea
of how good this color bar is and what we've got so just smoothened out that
and let's have a look with the flashlight
see how it looks so to me that's looking pretty good
yep looking pretty good i think i like that so the big big question is how's it going to face now
i can choose this side as the back or i can choose this side as the back and i really um
i really don't like this side so i think i'm going to go with this side as the back and
take that down on the front and if i look at it with the play of color on the edges
i dare say i think that the um the color face is better from this side too so that's where it uh
that's where experience comes in and little telltale signs around the area
edges to um give you an idea of what we'll face better
i think we're going to take down this side
and i think my decisions made so i'm going in
now this is always the most heated part of the
cutting experience because i have spent a fair amount of money on this stone
it was in a parcel and this is the best piece of a five thousand dollar lot now hopefully
i get something decent out of this stone otherwise i could be losing money
and we're getting closer down to the color bar now this is where it really starts to count
oh heart's pumping oh my god look at that look at that color coming through there
that's nice color wow
oh so from here i have to be super careful because i just
went down really quickly and nearly hit the bottom of the color bar on the edge there
and luckily that sand is there in the way so i would have had to cut that away
anyway
ah
all right come on oh oh i like the colors coming up through there
i'm not sure you can see it on camera but there's some orange in that wow come on
oh actually one of my legs are shaking oh my goodness oh i can see that color coming through
oh come on sand there's sand just underneath it too
oh my goodness
this is a little bit stressful actually
you can see that color is quite nice
oh wow come on so from here all i need is it for it to clean up
and if it cleans up i'm in a good place i just need that color to clean up come on
i need it to clean up before i run out of color bar because it's easy to go straight through it
oh this the haze is coming off the top now
check that out there's some yellow and orange in that and i'll show you on
another camera but you can't actually see it on this camera that's crazy
that's got some beautiful color to it all right taking that edge there a little bit more
oh come on
see if there's one tiny little sand spot right there
that could give me grief for the rest of the cut and i don't need grief that
one there is on the edge and it's not so bad but this one needs to come out oh my goodness
come on out you go out get out
it's out i got it out oh you beauty you beauty all right i'm just going to take a fair bit
off it because i want to get a nice shape in it but i think we've uh we're past the worst of it
just clean up that back a little bit because it's all thick and wonky
oh that's turning out to be a beautiful crystal
beautiful
oh wow
yes let's go and have a close look at it well that wasn't one of my better filming sessions sorry
about the camera i nearly deleted the whole video but i decided you probably still wanted to see it
it's a bit smaller than i was expecting but the color is really nice and
some people ask me actually why the colors look better when you finish the stone than when i am
cutting it and the truth be is that one of the cameras that i use is not as good as the other
cameras so you don't get a better idea of how it's coming out straight up so this one
showed up it was green in the camera but when you take it to the proper camera and light box
as i showed you it's showing a lot of orange as well which is a major bonus because when you
get green and orange in a crystal it the value does go up significantly so let's start cutting
i bought this rough piece of opal a couple of weeks ago when i was on my trip to lightning ridge
while this piece didn't turn out anywhere near as big as i imagined it would it's still a pretty gem
but that really doesn't take away the fact that i will be making a loss on this parcel
nice and even on the stick and we are ready to rock and roll
do
hmm that wasn't the greatest outcome uh in all of my cutting videos i think it only weighs 1.78
carats and i was expecting a little bit over two i was hoping for three to four so it's really half
the size than i hoped in a round or an oval i could have made it bigger as a free form
but they are just harder to sell and i know a lot of you say why didn't you leave it free form and
in my business and it is my business i do need to do the right thing for my business not for the
stone but for my business so these do sell easier when they're an oval or a round or a cushion cut
so it works out at 1.78 carats it's an n5 and a b3 it still has beautiful broad flash and if it was
three carats i would have got my money back but right now there is no way i'm recovering my money
so so be it um there is some few a few other stones in the parcel that will recoup my money
i think um to break even pretty much yeah around about that so uh this one here 1.78
it's about a 1500 stone so that is quite a significant drop in value but uh
still happy with it it's quite a nice pretty stone hopefully you got to learn something
out of it as well that not all knobbies work out and they definitely don't and
i hope you enjoy it i'll see you next
time
you