It’s funny, I’ve been cutting for years and just never got around to frosting facets.
You did a great job, love that cut. Next time please put in the dimensions to help provide size reference.
An amethyst that size with some minor inclusions might sell for anywhere between $15 and $50.
If the deal seems too good to be true for a stone, it likely is. There are many many many tricks used to hide quality issues such as:
I have sold stones to friends and co-workers and always price them lower than market as I am not a professional. I will also refund them if they take it to a gemologist who disagrees with my price. But as the poster has indicated the stone that was cut had numerous flaws in the cutting process and is pretty but not worth much.
Still great to look at!!!!!
I honestly hate cutting small stones… they are so easy to screw up royally.
Still looks good!
Nice job!
Fantastic job! And I wish you and your partner all the best!
Let us know your father’s reaction to you taking up faceting!
This is neat.. I just tried “faceting lemmy” and my community came up on top.
Still looks good… I could see that as a simple pendant.
Honestly I hate on myself for the mistakes I make cutting, but 9 times out of ten no one is going to notice it. 😉😂
Woot! Fantastic job!
That kind of result is what keeps me going.
I use 60k on a BATT to polish pretty much everything I cut these days.
Great job on this!
Yeah, it's tough. My son has started to get into cutting... which is cutting into my cutting time. 😂 He cut a tourmaline this weekend, and neither of us noticed some of the inclusions until he was polishing. Didn't affect the stone's look.
Nice job on this!
This is obviously not facet grade material, but it is one of my favorite mineral specimens I have.
This was another stone from the way back machine that I still have laying around. I don't recall what the cut was, but my best guess is a standard portuguese cut.
My machine is on it's way to get repaired, they said 2-3 weeks. Shipping cost was more than I care to admit.
So I finally finished the garnet's for the earrings, and am now waiting on the mounts to come in. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially since they are almost exactly the same size!
Left: 4.02mm @ .325 ct Right: 4.01mm @ .320 ct
The one downside here is that the color is different, but my daughter doesn't care. 😀
I hate doing stones this small, as it takes a really delicate touch and slow lap speed to avoid over cutting the facets. I usually rough in the stone and cut the first tier in 1200, then cut the remaining facets using 3000 so I avoid over cutting.
Finally some sad news, my cutting machine's motor is acting up and I have a support request in to Ultratec on how to get it resolved. So I won't be posting any new stones for some time. I'll try and post some older stuff I still have, as well as rough.
This stone is a blast from the past. I cut this when I was first starting to get into cutting and wanted to see how long a rectangle I could cut. This turned out nice but was, as I recall, a super hard cut to complete. The length of the rectangle caused issues during transfer and I had to make minute adjustments while cutting the crown.
I did this to show the difference RI and other stone attributes affect how a cut looks. This cut was designed to look like the cockpit of the millennium falcon as it enters lightspeed, which I designed specifically for my niece who is a HUGE star wars fan.
Here it is in quartz:
And in London Blue Topaz:
Just goes to show that a single design may not work well in all materials.
So I've never cut one of these before, and frankly I'm not sure how it would turn out.
Let me know your guess!
(I should have a new stone finished this weekend which I'll share Monday.)
So I finally got my hand well enough to get back to cutting and finished the first of two calibrated 4mm stones for earrings for my daughter. This is the first one which comes in at 4.04mm.
This is the second attempt at cutting this stone, as the first one ended in failure when a fracture appeared in the center of the original rough.
The design for this cut was done by my son who wanted to try his hand at designing a cut. His design turned out great, and wasn't too hard to cut!
So I injured my hand and can't cut for a few days, so I thought I'd share some images of more esoteric gemstones to challenge those following to identify the rough. (Yes I know what it is...)
So what's your guess?
This was another commission I did for a co-worker who wanted this as an anniversary present for his wife. I picked up this piece at the Tucson Gem and Mineral show. It was not super saturated, and the shape was already close to a pear shape. I was really happy to get a 51% yield from the rough on this, and it turned out really nice.
This was a commission of a piece of rough I was asked to purchase at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show a few years back. I cut it using a design by Arya Akhavan called Aperture Science.
There are a plethora of designs that can be found online and cut. The two sites I look through for ideas:
Take a look through those databases, and I'm sure you'll see some really interesting ideas/designs.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2192252
A few years ago, just prior to COVID, I made the trek to the largest gem and mineral show in the world and one of the most dangerous places for my bank account.
Some of the display minerals, and yes they were for sale, are of museum quality.
Yes I know what you're thinking about that last one.... 😜
Some of these were made into chair, bench and table:
There were multiple sites across the city with vendors, all as large as this.
Vendors sold beads, geodes and almost anything related to minerals.
Of course what I came for was rough to facet, and there was tons of it. At some sites there were bins full of moonstone, amethyst and other facet grade stone. The best stuff was behind counters like this one.
Honestly I spent way too much, and still haven't cut all of the rough I bought. Since COVID I've heard it isn't quite as big, but is still worth the visit.
Yep, larger stones that are cleaner will price higher. Amethyst is common, and really only specific shades can price higher.
A good example is Beryl. This is the scientific name for a number of stones you might know:
And I’m sure you are aware of the price differences between emerald and aquamarine. 😉
Finally, these days if you look at the prices for jewelry that are set in gold, unless the stone is expensive, the majority of the cost is the setting and not the stone. A simple sterling silver pendant mount can be had for around $9, which makes buying stones like this really affordable.
On the flip side though, cutting amethyst to sell isn’t profitable for the cutter for the most part due to the time it takes to cut the stone. That stone likely took between 5-6 hours to cut.