Looking for a Gem Cutter in Brisbane/Advice

Hello,

My misses and I have spent the last 4 months zig zagging across Australia (we're Canadian) and have discovered the joy of fossicking. She may have taken to it only because i promised her that i would marry her but she had to gather her own gems and gold layful: before we made it into a ring, but in any case we managed to gather many rocks on our travels.

Now that we arrived back in Brisbane, we have gone through some of our Inverell sapphires and think that we may have a couple cutters in the mix. But due to the lack of experience we have, we don't know if these are worth cutting nor the quality of the stones.

I understand that we may lose around 60% of the stone in the cutting process, but in your expert opinions do you think these rocks would be worth cutting in Australia ? And, does anyone know of someone in the Brisbane area that would be willing to cut these for a reasonable price ?

We did speak with Lambert's but after reading some recent reviews here it has placed an air of doubt in me and thought that maybe we should get the bigger stones looked at locally (we figured that the numerous little stones probably don't warrant cutting).

The photo attached doesn't show the true colours of these stones, some are very dark blue, and some are beautifully coloured lighter blue/yellow/green parti stones.

I plan on going to the MGLS and becoming a member as we would like to cut some of our other stones down into jewelry, so i will ask around there as well, but thought the experts here may be able to chime in as well.

Cheers

Put them onto a torch and take some better pics... Very hard to tell from a pic like that....

Dihusky is Gold Coast Based but cuts a mean stone... But you need to make 10 posts before you can PM (private message) him.. Or im sure He will respond to your request on here soon....

Lamberts, it takes them at least 6 months to cut stones.... I wouldn't even think about them.....

LW....

Mr and (Mrs) Rocks, looks like you might have a nice natural yellow one there. ?
If youve got some dark stones that look like they are clean and without any major cracks you could send them up to Peter Brown at the Rubyvale Gem Gallery and have them heated. It might improve the colour and clarity. Costs about a dollar a carat. If you end up with some that are clean and in the 3-4 carat range then you should have some nice ring stones ready for cutting.
So basically you said that your prospective wife could have any ring she likes ... so long as she digs it out of the earth herself? Now thats equality in a marriage.??

For some reason the emojis came out as question marks? ?. ??.

:Y: . :Y: . Thats better.

Thanks LW - Hopefully these photos will might provide some better detail. Not the best quality but with a couple iPhones best i could do.

The ones that interest me the most are Numbers 5 and 7. They are very dark but when the light hits you can make out the colour and i was thinking these would cut up beautifully. The misses likes 1, 2, 3 and 8 because of the parti colours but I am afraid they may have some cracks.

Thanks Martyz - I believe the yellow one is a zircon (number 17), but there is a interesting brownish blue one that shines yellow under the light (number 11). Thanks for the contact in Rubyvale, we were thinking with everything going on with COVID that we'd escape the city and head up that way for a few weeks. I will definitely swing by the gem shop, maybe can Peter can offer some insight as well.

I know these stones are small and may not be true cutters to some, however they do hold a bit of sentimental value and if i can get them cut for a decent price I would like to.

Image 1


Image 2


Image 3


Image 4


Image 5


Image 6


Image 7


Image 8


Image 9


Image 10


Image 11


Image 12


Image 13


Image 14


Image 15


Image 16


Image 17

As a point of reference for dark sapphires here is an example of where you might be at with some of your stones.
A dark sapphire will show little colour in normal light.


But will show nice colour with strong backlight such as LED.


Heat treating can lighten the stone and clear some inclusions,



But the stone will probably still be quite dark when cut.

All of the above photos are the same sapphire so I hope that gives you some idea of what you have to work with.
Good luck.

Looking through you photos I_Collect_Rocks, pic 10 and 17 show promise, the others look to be too included and probably best held as fun collections from your trip.

From a size perspective based on the size of the LED light, they look to be a couple of the larger pieces, so if they are clean you may get a nice little gem once cut. Everything depends on the shape, and this also will dictate how much you will lose in weight, starting point is a minimum of 2/3ds up to 3/4.

So one of these could possibly be the centre piece of an engagement ring...??