Rough opal cut of the year - I make a huge $45k profit

wow join me now for one of the most phenomenal outcomes in opal cutting as we explore this unbelievable Andamooka Crystal opal [Music] g'day and welcome to Black Opal direct my name is Justin well today we have something really special we have an endermuka Crystal rough opal and this type of rough opal doesn't come out of the ground very often anymore it's very very nice Crystal color and oh well from what I can tell from the sides and a little bit of glimpses from the top it's showing me that the color could be amazing right across the stone now I'm going to take the Dremel to this Stone to get all those sand spots out of the top and hopefully we have beautiful pattern and color right across the whole piece and that will make me decide whether I'm going to cut a nice carving out of the whole piece or I'm going to chop it up to beautiful Stones symmetrical gems so my first thing is to have a really good look at it through a loop and I use my gem torch to shine the light through and see where it's clear and where it's not it doesn't give a full picture so until I know how that color is going to face and whether it's clear crystal or milky we won't know where it's going to be cut so let's get on to the the Dremel and have a little bit of a play and see if we can expose some of that color it's been a while since I've had the chance to cut something of this magnitude play of color and brightness this Andamooka piece is one of the very rare gems that have come out of the ground many many years ago and realistically they don't come out of the ground anymore so I'm quite nervous and excited to cut this Gem and see what comes out the idea of taking all the sand out of the piece with a Dremel in hindsight was probably not that greater idea from what the outcome happens but anyway I changed my Dremel bits to a scented Diamond bit and so I could be a little bit more aggressive on my grinding Andamooka Crystal opal should not be mistaken for Andamooka matrix opal there's a very big difference in the two, matrix opal has a lot of host Rock in it whereas this type of Crystal opal is pure silica and it's very very nice high-quality gem opal but one of the pitfalls of this type of opal is you can have some beautiful Crystal opal and when you've finished cutting it the cotton wool or the lines of white lines inside the stone can come out and avoiding that is probably the biggest challenge in cutting Andamooka Crystal opal because the white lines are considered inclusions which devalue the gem so for now I'm Flying Blind I have no idea whether this piece has lots of cotton in it or not thank you dremeling opal is not something that I consider myself an expert at like my father was but I have found it really necessary to clean up this Stone as best as I can for the chance that I could create lots of little stones with nice high domes and later on down the track I realized that this really wasn't necessary but it still doesn't make any difference in the gems at the end oops did I say gems I don't want to give too much away and I gotta say stick around because the outcome is incredible foreign what I've exposed here is a magnificent play of color but it has some blemishes in the color itself so I've taken to the back to have a look at what's underneath that cutting opal is quite a fun Expedition when things work out but really I was not ready for what I was about to expose and I will remember this one for the rest of my life a piece of rough opal that cost me fifteen thousand dollars I would love to buy 10 more of these from the outcome that happens so watch and enjoy the beautiful play of color that's about to be exposed [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] still got a little bit more to go to the best stuff the last remaining inclusions are causing me a bit of Havoc because I'm risking losing that magnificent pattern on the top as I take down every little micro millimeter off the top trying to get these sand spots and inclusions out without losing that color he's starting to grind on me uh pardon the pun [Music] [Music] That's right [Music] magnificent can you believe all of those colors the Reds the golds the greens the blues the oranges everything is in it the flagstone and floral and chaff pattern and I didn't mention the pink so when I bought this piece I did have a hunch that the color would be pretty nice on the inside and while I Dremel the sand off the side that I thought would be where I'd want to face it once I took that cotton wool off the back of the Stone that is some of the best Crystal Opal I've ever seen and I now I was considering making it into one big carving but because the pattern separates from the middle to the sides I'm going to concentrate on one main Stone in the middle and then maybe a set of stones around the outside so it means we're going to do a bit of slicing but that color is just ridiculous all right so now it is pretty much crunch time um I need to figure out and make sure that each stone that I'm going to cut has the same or very similar best pattern that I can produce out of this piece now there is three different types of patterns there's this Floral Pattern here there's this nice flagstone and floral and chaff pattern there and then there is a little bit more floral Moss pattern there so to make a one whole Stone while it would be very pretty um it's not really going to cut top top gems like I want I want perfect perfect gems and the the piece the centerpiece is just going to be probably one of the best crystals I think I've ever seen from Andamooka and that's that's really saying something so I'm just going to do some drawing on the on the piece and just get an idea of where I could possibly get slice the stones off the ends and where I can get the best biggest and best stone out of the center now that that little Cloud there will eventually come out but it is starting to make that corner quite thin so my best I think the best thing to do is to pretty much take take it out so um if I come from this angle here do a slice to there and then come back around and do another slice to there I'll save a little bit of weight on that stone um because it's so thin on this side when I come in that the opal is going to probably I would imagine sit somewhere around there so maybe I do make my slice a little bit further that way so I'll come into there and then I'll come in to there so because it's two angles so there's a good um good example that is going to be one big and beautiful gem and I feel very privileged to be cutting something as amazing as this so uh I think a slice there and possibly a slice there and then we have this piece here to work with which is it's okay color nothing like the color in the middle but still very pretty nice floral Mossy floral pattern so I think now we've figured out where we're going to be what we're going to do could eventually could slice off some of those ends off there and go for some small stones there too but I want to have a play with it it is quite thin on that side I want to have a play with the stone and see how it sits first but I think now it's time for us just to take those ends off so let's get on the slicer and take some of them off let's do it all right so this is probably the scariest part of the whole process is making sure that I'm slicing actually my Slice on that line there a little bit away from it just to give me a little bit more buffer zone for the big beautiful gem oh that's grabbing I love it all right that's one angle this one all right and now let's take out the other side foreign there so while I'm here I might just take a little bit off that edge good how good is that [Music] so this is the main piece and you can see that that's going to be a large gorgeous gem hopefully clean that would be the plan so I did expose this and I had to on the back just to make sure that the color wasn't better on this side and you can see obviously that it's not this is way better way and above better than I ever thought it would be a very very pretty Stone and the pieces that I've sliced off also nice pieces of color and we may make them into a set and we'll see what happens I'll just go clean them up a little bit more so I'll work on the little pieces first and I think I can get a better idea of the Big Stone the magical color there is really nice I might even take that in half that piece there [Music] so the tip just broke off there because it was way too thin so it doesn't matter but I'm just going to shape that into a beautiful little Crystal it's a good little example right there of a very pretty Crystal so that should be a really nice one down now this piece again very nice color I'll take the skinny end off first and I think we're going to make that a little cushion foreign [Music] very pretty okay [Music] a nice little long pace take out that pointy bed [Music] it's a couple of nice little Stones around it the color is absolutely phenomenal and that's a nice long cushion cut very cool [Music] so this piece has got layers of color and I think this color on top is not quite as good as what's just underneath so I'm just going to do a little Telltale test from a corner and yeah I can see better better play of color showing up so I'll bring this Edge in a little bit and I dare say when I take this down a little bit further it should get better there we go there we have it look at that very nice color underneath [Music] take a little let's do a little bit of tile cutting through there snap that off all right [Music] very nice color again I'm really nervous about doing this big Stone I hope we get a nice clean piece of that elusive cotton wool that is so renowned in Andamooka opal can just turn up when you're least expect it [Music] all right all right there's a little drop shape a little drop [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] another nice Crystal opal [Music] so for the big one time to start cleaning up those edges and seeing where our stone and color and pattern sits the best so it's now time for me to ignore the lines that I've drawn and go for the biggest and best stone I can [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] here [Music] so that's a pretty big Stone a bit of a gouge there from my slice just gonna have to roll that in a little bit even it up and now there's that cloud that's there and I'm not really happy about that I need to take a look at this Dome and see whether I keep all of that beautiful play of color or whether it starts disappearing when I roll the Dome sorry I have to be super careful here as I roll that dying out to get rid of to get rid of that cotton wool there it's coming out but also the color that beautiful pattern is also disappearing very very cautious I have to be so Big Stone that's for sure very big Stone now I'm going to even out the backs [Music] because realistically when you're cutting into Andamooka opal the thinner the stone is the more Crystal it will become now I'm not trying to grind beautiful opal way just for the sake of pulling it a crystal because it already is a crystal that is one big beautiful gem now I can tidy it up and roll those that Dome a little bit [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] a bit more wow wow wow what a freaking Big Stone that is that is amazing oh get a load of that huge what a massive pen piece that is [Music] over the years there's been a handful of gems that go down in history as stones that I'll never forget and this is definitely one of them and with that lovely gem has come a lot more experience of how Andamooka Crystal opal can be cut [Music] foreign has the ability to create black opal white opal Crystal opal and that matrix opal that people treat it is one of the most amazing Fields as such a variety of gems and one of the rarest types of opal that we have in our possession is from Andamooka and it's that piece that's called Dwayne the Rock and that is a beautiful big slab of opal infused in quartz which is one of the rarest combinations of minerals together and I think there's only three pieces in existence that um have a quite a large size like this one and with this beautiful color now the stone I'm cutting right now you can see that it has very similar color in Duane so you can imagine what could be inside of that big rock [Music] foreign little exercise for you leave a comment and have a guess how many carats this gem does weigh she's a big one and I'd love to hear your opinion [Music] also I didn't film me cutting the smaller Stones the video would just get too long but here's a little snippet of me cutting one I thought I'd just concentrate on the nice big gem [Music] [Music] [Music] so what a what a finish what a beautiful big gem and my guesses are as good as yours about what it weighs and so let's just check out and see what it does 29.76 carats 29 carats that is unbelievable that's a huge Crystal huge with beautiful color I'm very happy with that and the smaller stones are all around about the same same value per carrot so let's put them all on the thing so there's another five carats in the smaller Stones so we're looking at probably three to four thousand dollars in the small stones and the big one so we're looking at around about a sixty thousand dollar gem what a beautiful beautiful outcome I'm happy with that thanks for watching guys we'll see you next time I know there was no dance this time but I am over the moon about this gem it's just so beautiful I can't I can't believe it can you believe it I can't believe it

Channel: Black Opal Direct

Views: 407,878

Keywords: opal, black opal, crystal opal, rough opal, lightning ridge, australian opal, lapidary, opal cutting, opalrubs, polished black opal, gem opal, man opal ring, opal jewellery, white opal, light opal, matrix opal, gem, gemstone, lightning ridge opal, uncut gems

Id: XkJ4CqCiaTk

Length: 33min 28sec (2008 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2023