Stones I have cut

Reno, myself and my wife are both learning and have found an excellent tutor fortunately, don't know where you are but we're on the Gold Coast.

As we discovered, cutting is easy but polishing is a whole world of skill and not many can do it really well. But that said, gem cutting takes time, patience, a delicate hand and an eye for detail, then add your own standards.

There are two excellent books you should track down which will give you a lot of valuable info,: Cutting Gemstones, A beginners Guide by John Broadfoot and Peter Collins, then the two book set; Amateur Gemstone Faceting by Tom Herbst. Between these 3 books you will discover virtually everything you need to know to get started and teach yourself.

As for faceting machines, that's a whole new story and you will find a plethora of opinions. We have an Imahashi and a Hall Xtra Cadet, the machines couldn't be more different, but both produce superb stones that have the potential to win comps at the Guild. The Imahashi is guaranteed to turn you grey whilst mastering it!!

I'm not sure what some of the others use, I know Snakey uses a Facetron, the others I am sure will also put their two bobs worth in.

Awesome thankyou very much for the info

Yellow citrine in Voltilini's "Nymphia" - a popular design and one of my current favourites. Stone weighs in at 9.45 carats and measures approx 14.5 mm across.

Looks spectacular, am I right is saying you avoided the 24 x 15 degree tiny facets around the table, certainly very hard to see in the picture if they are there. have ypu tried the frosted version?

Wow. :Y: :Y: :Y: Love the less geometric flower-like look of that one.

Dihusky said:

Looks spectacular, am I right is saying you avoided the 24 x 15 degree tiny facets around the table, certainly very hard to see in the picture if they are there. have ypu tried the frosted version?

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Cheers mate :Y:

Yep, well spotted - I deliberately omitted them on this stone. There was an issue with transfer and I had to build the crown slowly by eye. That final tier of tiny facets has half of them meeting and half of them floating, getting them all dead even would have been fiddly because of the combination of that and the earlier issue. The stone has to be pretty big for such tiny facets to make much of a difference.

The outer tier actually is frosted though it's a bit hard to see in the photo. I used a sintered 1200 for them. I tried a heavier lap first but while the frosting was more pronounced, the heavy one also left visible scratches so I went for the finer grit.

Nice work Lefty The colour suits that cut well, very dazzling.

Dave79 said:

Wow. :Y: :Y: :Y: Love the less geometric flower-like look of that one.

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Cheers Dave. Yep, it is indeed meant to represent a flower.

Wally69 said:

Nice work Lefty The colour suits that cut well, very dazzling.

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Cheers Wally, yep I was really happy with how that colour presents with that design. I did that same design in a colourless quartz crystal for father in law, one he found while we were fosicking. It looks nice but I think its best use is for stones with a reasonable depth of colour.

Awesome colour happening there Lefty. Beautiful bright yellow without the tinge. Lefty. Suits that cut well. :Y:

Cheers MM.

Its actually the first time Ive tried it in any colour other than purple or mauve. I reckon it could look great in any colour but I do think it needs a reasonable amount of saturation.

Lefty said:

Cheers MM.

Its actually the first time Ive tried it in any colour other than purple or mauve. I reckon it could look great in any colour but I do think it needs a reasonable amount of saturation.

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I believe a good rich colour always helps these type of cuts, gives an added dynamic to the sparkle. Just bought some Padparadscha boule which I might try once I have finished the faceter rebuild.

Be sure to post a piccy :Y:

That design is written specifically for RI 1.54 so how the reflections will behave and look ata higher RI wouild be interesting, I've never cut it in anything else yet. Im currently cutting another design for quartz (John Bailey's Amethyst Shield) in Mount Surprise natural blue topaz, I have cut it in both quartz and sapphire and it absolutely rocks in (light colured) saphire!

I'm not being picky, I love that stone, but in the photo there appears to be an odd circular spot, is that just the way the light is on it ?
Wish I had the patience to do that mate :Y:

xcvator said:

I'm not being picky, I love that stone, but in the photo there appears to be an odd circular spot, is that just the way the light is on it ?
Wish I had the patience to do that mate :Y:

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Cheers xcvator.

That circular spot is the table. It's smaller than a table on a more traditional cut like a round brilliant and is meant to represent the centre of a flower.

2.4 carat bi-coloured blue and pink topaz, though the pink is not easy to see. Another one for dad to add to his collection. Rough stone was purchased by him a couple of weeks ago at the Mount Surprise Gem Den - I don't know if he asked but I don't think the stone originated from O'Briens creek itself, I know of blue and yellow topaz occurring in Far North QLD and I was shown some large crystals by another digger at Mount Gibson that were the tone of mid-brown smoky quartz but were unmistakably topaz crystals, but I've never heard of pink topaz from up there, only from Killicrankie bay on Flinders Island.

Sneaky - does pink or pink-blue bi-coloured topaz occur up there anywhere?

Note the "wide-open bill duck" image in the reflection pattern in the second photo

Star sapphire, origin uncertain to me - the Anakie/Rubyvale field I think. The body tone looks black here but the stone is actually green-yellow. As with most of it's kind, it has a few cracks running through it, just like most emeralds do. Still came up quite nice. Star always shows best in direct sunlight but I don't get to use the camera/phone until missus gets home from work so it was photographed under a downlight.

Not sure of the weight, it's still attached to the dop at present - measures approximately 15mm x 11mm.

Saw a blue star on Sun, at the Sapphire markets, it had a y mark in the stone

Gilly47 said:

Saw a blue star on Sun, at the Sapphire markets, it had a y mark in the stone

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I did a blue one for dad a while ago - I could see it only looked 50/50. Nope, didn't throw a proper star