Proston garnet

A pyrope garnet, one of a number that were given to me by ktmman a while ago - finally got round to faceting them





They aren't really this colour shade which makes them look like Rhodolite garnets in the photo, the camera wants to see intense red as a maroon sort of shade for some reason. As garnets often are, they are very dark so I cut them as shallow as possible. Garnet has a low critical angle, about the same as sapphire so you can get away with making the pavilion quite shallow. Culet angle was 37 degrees and the crown was the "Lowboy" version of a Standard Round Brilliant. I did try other shapes but the ordinary brilliant seemed to be the most successful at letting in the most light.

Here's hoping that the place gets re-opened someday.

That's real nice Lefty,... a real gem !

Cheers Silver. They are a tad dark but they still look very nice in the right light, they return vivid scarlet flashes as they are turned.

Nice stone Lefty.

Very nice these things i can stair at for age,s almost go into a trance thinking
about how , when these ( rocks , stones , GEMS ) were formed over how many millions of years
the pressure and heat all the other minerals needed to create gem stones .
IT BLOWS ME AWAY .

dam it said:

Very nice these things i can stair at for age,s almost go into a trance thinking
about how , when these ( rocks , stones , GEMS ) were formed over how many millions of years
the pressure and heat all the other minerals needed to create gem stones .
IT BLOWS ME AWAY .

Click to expand...

Me too They were formed incredible spans of time ago in volcanoes or some related process, they've been walked over by dinosaurs and other creatures long since vanished, they were here when comets hit the Earth and they've lain hidden in the ground all that time. When you find one, you're the first person who has ever seen it. Pretty special I reckon, that's why I like fossicking as much as I like faceting.

Just had a good look at some garnets I found myself at another locality - they're almost all dark but there is a lighter coloured one among them, the shape of which looks like it would lend itself to be cut in half for a pair of earring stones. Might be my next project.