Watch a black opal emerge from a piece of Australian rough opal 

Totally agree, he just didn't want to screw it, so he send it back

True that.

May be he should have returned it but offered to pay a straight fee for it to be cut. I think he would still have made a good profit instead of getting a refund.

Orrr hes just being an overall good guy asking him to make a video instead of doing a silent commission for his own gain

Or he made up a plausible story because the returners buyer backed out. Trying to tease out the moral of the story from a business transaction is pointless.

Same

Same

same!

same,

Yeah Im not quite sure how I got here, but it was an interesting watch..

To be fair, opals grow all over the world and information doesn't become universal once it's known... So there have probably been hundreds or thousands of people through history discovering opal stones when they had no idea that such a thing existed. I'm sure many have happened on one and have been like "OMG a crystal rainbow, what does this even MEAN?! This mist be the most precious substance on earth."

The part I'm trying to imagine is when they polished it up to that beautiful green color and then proclaimed it a black opal.

@@Josef_R Well black opals aren't all green. "black" vs white opal refers to the background tone of the stone around all those colourful flecks that lends it either a really rich appearance, as seen here in the case of "black" or a more shimmery transparent appearance in the case of "white". Black opals can be much darker as a base, or more varied in colour too. Similarly "fire opal" doesn't always refer to opals in warm colours.

Opals are pretty nice cars.

@@dehdesh Close, but no cigar! The little German car's are Opel. Wikipedia article says that they started out as a manufacturer of sewing machine & later bicycles eventually car's. (is.gd/PdKBPg)

SelfGoverned EXACTLY

YES! it's called the marketing! I would love to meet the marketing person who decided to start selling black diamonds too. absolute genuises!

SelfGoverned yep spot on. it's sad really. opals have so much more variety and character than diamonds. honestly I think diamonds are pretty bland. a coober pedy opal however? DROOL

amazing end product by the way. wish I lived within even a 200 mile radius of a place I could go, to noodle for opals. so jealous! 😎

Amanda: I am more impressed at the marketing genius who rebranded ugly brown diamonds as, "chocolate diamonds". Fucking. Brilliant.

Same here hahaha

I thought the same thing!

haha same. I had to reread the title after seeing a flashlight. I forgot in Australia and UK a torch is what a flashlight is called.

Wendy Garcia me too

😂😂😂 you guys are funny! Why wouldn’t you think it’s light he needs instead of fire? I hadn’t even realised he could have meant a flame torch! But then again I’m Aussie and we don’t say flash light, that’s literally a flash for us: like one a camera. Crazy US English. 😂

The fact that the buyer had enough sense to return the stone speaks volumes about him as well , someone else may have really butchered that stone and wasted millions of years of natures beautiful creation .

That last sentence in your comment really hit home... Wish more people looked at it that way

@@latishaanthony912 I am a manufacturing jeweller , I only design and make one of hand crafted pieces in gold, platinum, and silver, I have set plenty of black opal in my time , the fire and play of this one after polishing was beautiful and it would have been a waste if it wasn't cut Proper. I have even seen some magnificent coloured precious gems that have been ruined by bad faceting , I remember a beautiful saphire that had the colour centre cut away from the cullet basically turning it into a piece of glass.

@@latishaanthony912 its a trait of true wisdom in my mind. Cause it requires you to look and reflect on yourself like a self assesment. Something surprisingly not a lot of people do

@Pete Mason You are writing to a man who has difficulty changing a pillow case, and power tools in my hands are lethal weapons - to myself.

i was actually thinking "damn he has really nice hands". was expecting his hands to be all beaten up

@@TheMrFrontera I suppose the constant grinding removes dead skin, leaving his hand soft and smooth. :-)

@@57thorns and if you ever need anyone to do a bank job... ;)

@@scottloar whats with being proud of no common sense and manual dexterity.....id be ashamed to admit that

Perfect analogy!

Best description of an opal I have ever heard!

Meleigha Garcon ... Wonderful description... Or in this instance Southern light Opals. Good name for a company.

exactly!

Brilliant POST!!!

BrianBell4073 good point. This piece is a highlight of how opal can turn out at its best. There are many many more that don’t cut anything at all. This was a bit of a gamble which def went in my favour. The experience needed is quite high for pieces like this.

3 grand for the tools ! ... and being able to see what others cannot.

@@blackopaldirect just exactly so! I've been cutting opal for nearly 20 years now and I like to compare it to buying and cutting jade from the rough. It takes a lot of experience to even guess at what the finished stone will look like when judging it from the rough, no matter how much experience you have. No matter how many pieces of Lightning Ridge rough you've studied then cut, it could have hidden pockets of potch or sand, or the color could have grown in one direction for a few millennia, changed direction for a few more, then changed yet again. I can't possibly count the number of times I've faced a stone, began polishing, then changed direction because I noticed a better, brighter color bar running at a different angle. It always results in a smaller stone, but the finished stone is worth 3 or more times per carat than it would have been at twice the size. It's not only skill and experience that makes a finished stone far more valuable than rough. Equipment costs a fortune! Wear and tear on Galaxy wheels is brutal, and replacing them is expensive. In fact, all jewelry related tools are insanely priced. Why? Because quality gemstones fetch high prices, and equipment manufacturers expect you'll make money from their tools. Search out prices on even simple tools like jewellers' needle nose pliers and you'll see what I mean. They're no different from other pliers except they typically have smooth jaws instead of grooved ones...but you'll have to pay through the nose to get them unless you're VERY handy at grinding them smooth while still being able to meet squarely. But skills and knowledge do figure in heavily. After all, if it were easy, anyone could do it.

@@jamesthe-doctor8981 Thank you

JazlDazl you're welcome.

Its cheaper to just take a bunch of re-bagged unwrapped jolly ranchers smack them with a smooth meat hammer to break them, dump them on a wax papered baking sheet and set the oven to a low heat. Then let them melt into a single sheet and beat again after cooking. One I can afford, the other I cannot. However I may not be an expert but, I would assume there are many similar costs to repair teeth in either case.

what

@@rottnlove get help

How amazing! What a gorgeous heirloom to have been handed down. Sentimental and beautiful.

Thank you I try :-)

Glad you liked Mark and thanks for watching

Thank you I'm glad you liked

Cristian Neacsu you are most welcome my friend. I am glad to be able to inspire. It warms my heart that you ha e been

Hi Justin if you looking for ethiopian opals i have some which i have cut myself... Would love to share pics

+C. C. C Thanks for the kind words :-)

Gerry Manning g

paynemaine Haha be careful once you start you will never stop Regards Justin

Thank you

No answer yet???

Thank you :-)

if it was to difficult or the buyer was just not sure how to do it...

Imagine destroying that stone by not knowing what you were doing. I would start with cheaper stones until I knew what I was doing.

He just kept friendly bashing him so hard lol

He was quite smug at the end there lol

I bet the guy who got the refund enjoyed learning from this video and not ruining such a beautiful stone for lack of experience.

Do you know the name of it? Id love to do that someday too!

Mollie It’s called the royal peacock opal mine. I tried to paste the link but I couldn’t 🤷‍♀️ Search “public opal mining in Nevada” and all the sites will come up 😊👍🏻

Thanks, Mary!!!! ❤️

I went to the opal mine in Nevada that you are talking about. Basically it’s a scam. The opals are so fragile, that if you pick one up, they crumble. The place they took us to dig has almost nothing. They scatter a few worthless “finds” on top of the ground for people to discover, but they are too fragile to be worth anything. In their office, they have a large, beautiful cylinder of opal sitting in an aquarium filled with water. The opal has to be kept submerged so it won’t fall apart. Going there was a complete waste of time and money. We spent $300 and came back with nothing but sore backs.

candicevee1 Oh wow, who knew that would be a scam? Thx for the heads up 👍🏻

Glad you learned something and enjoyed :-)

That would be sexy

I agree, Wire wrapping the original in to a pendant would have been awesome. That being said amazing to watch him work. True skill and mad respect!!!

I'm with you! While the polished version is very nice, I do like that 'raw look' some gems have when they're simply washed and/or polished! I LOVE natural stones and have continuously been fascinated how they're made! ^^

You would prefer "tumbled" stones. Not quite what you are explaining, but retains most of the natural look and can get some shine etc.

Im in between on that...i think some need to stay semi natural(free form)..and some can be amazing jewelry peices....although i do like free form better...

Thank you

Thats cool...i got some of that to work on as well...very cool stuff

I appreciate that! Steve

Welcome sheeple

Hope the guy who returned the gorgeous stone saw this video and wished he had kept it for himself!

Perfect name!😊

Sek

hahaha

SheyD78 hahah I do sand them away but they grow back

SheyD78 i suppose you’d get thick skin the same way you do after playing guitar or other stringed instruments for a while (i play bass :3)

How can you get thick skin by sanding it away?

Joe D i meant that it would grow back thicker

My parents do a ton of rock polishing. The wheels aren’t that bad. The corser ones are like nail files, so even when you touch them it’s not like getting cut like with a knife. Unless you hit the side, then the cut is more knife like lol.

HI Lexinitro Thanks for the comments. You will never see me dealing or working on welo opal. Unfortunately it is to volatile to work on and once the opal has been set can still crack in the setting. Not a chance I would like to take I am afraid. Also the amount of treated opal out there is bad for the industry. I get emails every week of people asking if they have ha real opal and unfortunately a lot of the time it is the treated black opal that they bought. I vowed only to deal in Australian opal as it can't be treated like hydrophane opal can be.I t is cheaper opal for a reason.

Thanks for the tip!I was wondering about that very thing!

@@blackopaldirect For me, the Australian opal outshines the Ethiopian every time. Your comments only confirm my decision to only purchase Australian. Keep up the great work!

@@blackopaldirect how did i get here

@@ChicknSandwich I'm wondering how I got here AND why am i reading the comments.😳

He didnt have the confidence to cut it

he didnt want to destroy the stone, thats why he asked for a video so he could learn how to approach a possible 2-4k stone without destroying it.