The black widow

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First attempt at cutting a picture into a faceted stone - Bob Keller's "Bola Spider" in colourless quartz.

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I actually made a couple of errors here but the end result still looks effective. The entire pavilion is cut well below the critical angle for quartz. Only the pavilion facets that make up the spider are polished, all others are left frosted to maximise contrast. The deliberate fisheye causes the light to pass straight through the spider without reflecting back, creating a dark silhouette that stands out against the frosted facets. If the stone is sitting on a black background, it creates a solid, matt-black image.

You can see the tip of one of the back legs is fatter than the others. That was the first part of the image that was cut, as I brought the stone down toward the spinning lap I thought "maybe I shouldn't do it this way". And I shouldn't have because it overcut a bit. For the rest of the leg facets I just wiped the stone back and forward across a stationary lap. Also, the leg ends extend under the crown facets where they don't in the original design. It isn't very clear from the instructions just how wide you are supposed to make the crown step facets, I thought I had made them narrow enough but I had not.

Anyway, it's something a bit different - something Peter Parker might give to Mary Jane :)
 
That's bl..dy impressive there Lefty. I know how hard it is to get those 'graphical' cuts to look good. Getting the angle correct seems to be so much more critical to get the proportions looking right.

How many ct's?
 
Cheers MM. Not sure what it weighs, haven't put it on the scales. It's around 17mm across, I'd guess it's probably roughly somewhere around the 10 carat mark but the whole stone is extremely shallow so it might not be as heavy as it looks. I'll weigh it tonight.

Been showing a few people at work - everyone thinks the spider is painted on :lol: I'm having to tell them that the spider motif is actually cut into the back of the stone and looks black because it's cut at angles that don't reflect light.
 
That looks great Lefty well done :Y:

I have not seen anything like that before and was expecting the design to be a nightmare. It does not seem as bad as i was thinking, how difficult was the stone to cut?
 
Cheers everyone. Shivan, no it wasn't really that difficult to cut. The crown is time-consuming because of all the tiny step facets but the level of actual difficulty is not that high. The only part that requires care is cutting in the spiders leg and pincer facets - they are very easy to overcut and it's much better to cut them in by wiping the stone across a stationary lap.

Stone weighs 10.65 ct.

As is often the case, it was difficult to photograph and doesn't look quite like that to the eye. First hand it looks a lot clearer. The camera seems to perceive the frosted pavilion facets as being a haze or smudges within or on the surface of the stone. Even the photo taken by the original designer looks that way.
 
Cheers guys. I found another one with a dragonfly image but I think I'd like to make some modifications to it.
 
I would be interested in that or in particular one with an elephant design
 
Moth said:
I would be interested in that or in particular one with an elephant design

Here you go Moth - Deborah Allen-Williams "Dragonfly"

Dragonflies have a rounded head, not pointy, that's why I said I'd probably modify it. It still does look like it will look effective though.

Can't say I've seen an elephant but there could well be one out there.
 
Thanks for that, might give it a try after I finish my current stone, which has been nothing but trouble.
 
MakkyBrown said:
Nice one Lefty, did you end up getting your claim?

Cheers, Makky. No, it's still all up in the air :( I don't give up easily but after being run around for five years I think I've just about had enough. It really must amount to the most truly extraordinary run of bad luck a person could possibly have with one thing and if I were superstitious I'd say the universe were telling me it had decreed that I was not to have one. They still have a substantial amount of my money and I still have nothing, going on experience so far I'll bet that the process involved in getting my dough back is extremely long and complicated and I will probably need a week's leave to be able to sit on the phone long enough to finalize it.

Maybe when I'm retired..........
 
Lefty said:
MakkyBrown said:
Nice one Lefty, did you end up getting your claim?

Maybe when I'm retired..........

You and me both Lefty lol, well not quite retirement the kids just need to get a bit older so I can escape.
What's the go in the fossicking area up there Lefty, can you just fossick anywhere upto claim boundaries? I'm tempted to headup that way sometime, even back to Tomahawk Crk as good sapphires are pretty hard to come by down here. Maybe I should look at buying a claim, but hard to know whats what without being in the area for a bit.

You've inspired me with your spider, I might cut a dragon fly, I have a few flatter bits of topaz that might be perfect.
 
What's the go in the fossicking area up there Lefty, can you just fossick anywhere upto claim boundaries?

Pretty much, you just need to grab a fossicking permit for the area, which you can do online I think, or just get one from the Sapphire general store beside the Blue Gem caravan park (I think the store and post office at Rubyvale both hold them as well). Actually, I don't think it costs much to get one for the whole of Queensland.

Try not to go into the Mines Department office in Emerald in person in case you get "served" by a charming bloke named Kev, who seems to think that all claimholders and applicants for fossicking permits are criminals and need to be treated as such. I heard he was in transition to retirement, he might be gone by now.

good sapphires are pretty hard to come by down here

Have you done much fossicking in the Weld river area?

Cheers
 
I've done a bit on the weld but mainly other creeks in the area. I got some blues on my last couple of trips, probably have about 15 sapphires to cut, not tiny but not huge. I use a 4mm sieve on the bottom so the tiny ones fall though. Have some pretty nice zircons from down here aswell, some of the yellow and pinks are pretty good.

The fossicking licenses are pretty cheap and I can buy online to avoid the office.
I was thinking if I went I could make as base somewhere with the wilboughy and drive around digging and sampling/filling buckets with wash till I find a good spot. Is there much free ground or has most of it got claims on it. The wash area looks extensive from the map.
 

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