u/Aggravating_Might_62

I bought this Tanzanite specimen a couple months ago during an Instagram Live sale. Unheated Tanzanite rough can be quite expensive and even though I had to cut away a large portion of this Tanzanite, it still ended up being cheaper than buying rough from the sites I usually buy from. It started at just under 28 cts and after cutting away 90% of the inclusions and preforming, it ended up being 10 or so cts. I decided to do a freeform cut for this piece to retain as much material as possible after losing so much during the perform stage. Cutting went without a hitch, but polishing was giving me some trouble. Every now and then I kept getting these fine scratches while using aluminum oxide on my Diamax, there might be some tiny bits of crystal imbedded in it somewhere. It was also happening right when I was about to finish the facet, causing me to have to polish more resulting in meet points getting over cut, which I had to then go back and fix. I think I should just get it resurfaced to save me headaches. Anyways, I switched to my Darkside lap and used a high purity cerium oxide Battstik and that got the job done. Once I finished the stone and got it off the dop I noticed a small chip near my open culet. At first I was confused on how it happened then thought back to when I was doing the transfer. Since the stone is asymmetrical when I was pushing the new cone dop with glue against the gem it didn't look like it was touching, so I remember pushing to make sure it was. That must have been when it happened. So I re-dopped it and fixed the chip. While I was at it I also cut out an inclusion on the girdle's edge, which altered 3 of the facets on the pavilion and crown, which I had to then fix. After finishing the stone the first time it weighed in at 4.3 cts. After doing the repairs its final weight came in at 4.1 cts. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, but after using my new macro lens you can see a tiny inclusion now in the middle of the table. There was another inclusion on the table I was trying to get rid of/ hide under the table's edge, I’ll probably end up recutting the crown to get both of those inclusions out in the near future. Anyways, I love the pleochroism unheated Tanzanite exhibits. A very special stone to say the least. 💎

This piece of rough was on discount because it was slightly included and while looking at the rough I knew the main inclusions could be cut out for a nice clean gemstone. I felt inspired to cut a freeform design after watching a couple of Justin K. Prim's videos on Youtube. The video titled, "How and Why to Learn Advanced Faceting Techniques" and his conversation with Jean-Noel Soni, both great videos. The rough weight started at 11.615 Cts. I preformed the stone by hand and cut away the inclusions and was left with 8.2 Cts. Once dopped, I cut the girdle. Now, I didn't have the confidence to cut this stone freestyle like Jean-Noel Soni, so after I figured out my girdle indexes I inputed them into Gem Cut Studio and began designing the stone around that. For an asymmetrical stone I think I came up with a pretty well balanced design. With exception of the girdle facets, every single facet was cut at a different angle. I'm very pleased with the final results and definitely want to continue down this path of cutting.