u/vanguard1256

Rough sourced from Joe Henley
GemCad design derived by Bob Keller
Sunfire/sunshine citrine: 4.07 ct
Amethyst: 3.91 ct
Imperial flame/madeira citrine: 6.21 ct
Prasiolite: 3.42 ct

It’s been a while since I posted any of my work. I wanted to do more of them in sets and I’ve been chugging through this parcel of tunduru garnets. Even though the parcel is around 20 pieces, I’ll probably leave a few of the more annoying pieces uncut for now and move on. In the meantime, here are four Portuguese style cuts.

Personally, I really like how they look, though the pavilion is very deep. I’ll have to put it in GCS and see how I can adapt it to smaller pieces and other materials before I cut them. People I’ve shown them to also tend to gravitate towards them as well.

Despite the large number of facets compared to what I’ve usually been cutting, it is very simple in principle as it’s just the standard round but stacked more on both sides. However, it is still time consuming to cut because all your errors carry forward and consistently meeting the points of the previous tier takes a lot of looking. I got complacent thinking I could just cut to depth on the Madeira citrine and a lot of the facets are off on that crown. The prasiolite and Sunfire citrine are probably my best cuts of the set even though the prasiolite has that inclusion.

For laps I ended up cutting the first tier with 360 but only the 96-24-49-72 indices to rough it out then switched to 600 sintered for the rest. Tiers 4 and 5 cut very quickly, so I think I ended up cutting those on a 3k lightning lap instead. I also prepolished with the 3k as the 1200 was likely to move the facet too much for my liking. Polish was done with CeOx lightning.

.86 ct pyrope garnet from Mozambique
Trillion design by Arya Akhavan

Tried to redeem my other attempt at this cut and did better by a lot. I didn’t have to overcut the table, though it seems like I chipped one of the corners at some point. The stone is still very dark, but the red flashes are very satisfying when you see them. Maybe I should try cutting some of these darker garnets in Arya’s Buyer’s Remorse design to help lighten them up a bit more. Still trying to decide between alumina or 50k for the polish step.

Bahia citrine from Brazil I think the rough was around 20-25 ct
Cut in “Starflare” designed by Arya Akhavan

This one was a bit of a challenge in couple of ways. Being the second trillion I’ve cut, I was still not too comfortable with leveling the girdle and cutting towards the culet, though I think I did a better job this time around.

The crown was a bit complicated, especially which laps to start on. C7 I tried cutting with a 3k LL, which I think was the right call. I still overcut one of them, I think, but corrected for the other two sides. I then discovered C8 and C9 were larger than I thought, and I had to go back to my cutting lap to get those.

All in all, I had fun with this one despite the challenging crown. I definitely took a couple of extra breaks cutting the crown as it was testing my patience at times. I also may have rounded some of the facets on C9 during polishing.

“Teaching Trillion” by Arya Akhavan
1.83 ct pyrope garnet from Mozambique

Trying out a basic trillion for the first time. While I’ve done some other triangles before, trillions feel a bit different since P2 cuts up towards the culet. I find the culet meet is incredibly easy to miss to the point where I think I want to cut it close then finish the meet at prepolish. I also didn’t leave enough room to cut the crown by a little bit. I wonder if I could have cut at shallower angles to make the meet happen. Either way the chip on the crown side made it impossible. I ended up cutting the table extra large to remove the chip and ignored the table meetpoints altogether. It was a good learning opportunity. Leveling the girdle was also very hard to see in a stone this dark.

Mistress cut by Jeff R. Graham
.84 ct in aquamarine from Malawi

A bit behind on my posts but I’ve been continuing to work on polishing. This one is much clearer than my other attempt at this cut. Even though I left some scratches and maybe a chipped corner, I’m pretty happy with how things are progressing. The smaller crown facets also meet better this time. Knowing which lap to start on really is quite helpful.

Treforze written by Arya Akhavan
2.55 ct Peridot

I’ve been working on changing how I polish my facets to better hit the entirety of the facet. This design is really good for testing that since the facets are large and there are relatively few of them. I think this one is a lot better than my previous attempts. Peridot remains a very challenging material. It cuts deceptively fast, and inclusions can be a real nightmare to deal with. I also wonder if the ability to polish very bright facets is also affected by this. Still, I managed to avoid fracturing this one, though I think I see some inclusions in there that would have posed a problem had I cut into them.

Void Reaver by Arya Akhavan
Amethyst from Brazil

I quite liked cutting this. P3 and C4 facets cut very quickly. I may have overcut some of the P3 facets and probably should have cut them with my 1200 LL. Because of this I ended up cutting C4 and C5 on the LL. I did enjoy cutting this design and the tilt performance on this design is phenomenal. I also used a gemolight for the video/photos this time which is apparently better than all my other lights.

Aperture Science by Arya Akhavan
Ametrine from Bolivia

Second attempt cutting this design. It helped a lot knowing the speed the different tiers cut at. It let me optimize my lap sequence quite a bit. The color is not quite as strong in this parcel, but the tilt performance is really amazing. You can see it from so far away! I also didn’t leave a flaw on the pavilion and didn’t have to overcut the table, so there’s that. Of the three rectangle cuts I’ve done, this one I like the best so far.

Until I get an upgrade to my photography capabilities it seems like videos perform slightly better, so here we are! I think I’ll try Arya’s Void Reaver on a piece of amethyst next, and maybe trying out some aquamarine after that.

Aperture Science by Arya Akhavan
Santa Ana Madeira citrine from Brazil.

Trying to see if videos are a bit better than pictures from my phone. I found this cut a lot of fun for a rectangular piece of rough. However, I somehow missed a flaw on the tip of the pavilion, or I induced the damage when prying the stone off the dop. I also intentionally overcut the table because there was a fairly deep flaw on the table. I figured sacrificing those meets was worth not having a gash across the table.

In terms of cutting the design, I mostly used 360 plated to preform, 600 sintered for the rest of the cutting, 1200 LL for prepolish followed by CeOx. I cut C3 with the 1200 LL due to how quick they are to overcut. I opted to cut P3 this time, and I think it helped mask the pavilion flaw. I may try this one again in ametrine. I think it could look interesting with the color split.

Gamma brilliant by Jeff Ford

This piece of lab padparadscha was kind of a nightmare for me.

For one, I decided to do the polishing with only lightning laps as I have a full suite of them and don’t have a BATT yet. My lap progression was 360 plated (preform)>600 sintered>3k LL (prepolish)>8k LL>50k LL (final polish. The table is a bit hazy, and I may try to repolish it on a BATT later, but for now it is what it is.

The stone also popped off when I was on my second to last facet with the 50k polish. I made the executive decision to forego the last facet since I couldn’t tell which one it was that I didn’t polish yet anyway. Mounting in the cone dop was nerve wracking. I used to flat dop from the other side to make sure the stone was as centered as I could get it. I had to tweak all the crown facets by 2 indices up and -.125 on the vernier adjustment to get the crown facets to line up. And I think I managed that part pretty well. Meetpoints seemed the best I’ve done so far, so that’s good. Probably took about 10 hours of cutting with all the extra problems I had. I’ll probably try it again when I have my BATT.

Treforze by Arya Akhavan, peridot of unknown origin (gem club’s stash)

Did a test cut on a small piece of peridot, first material change for me since I started on quartz. It cuts with a lot less effort than the quartz family, which surprised me a bit. I’m not sure I did the polishing appropriately, as I went from 600 sintered straight to alox. It seemed smooth, but maybe I should’ve added a 1200 or 3k in between. I don’t think I ran into any lily pads but I did miss a fracture. Pictures still suck but I think my kitchen lighting is better.

SRB in Brazilian amethyst

This stone had a much deeper color than the other parcel of amethysts I have, and that was very evident during cutting. I think I overcut one of the main crown facets a smidge but it’s pretty hard to tell from the pictures I think. Every time I take these pictures reminds me I probably need an actual camera or at least a phone upgrade.

Treforze by Arya Arkhavan, .935 ct

Second time cutting this design. It is a fairly quick cut and doesn’t have that many facets, but the geometries are really quite nice. I think I did a better job polishing this one, and the clarity of this parcel of amethyst interacts quite well even though it’s a much lighter shade of color than I’m used to seeing.

Rand’s cut corner rectangle

2.14 ct Brazilian amethyst

This one was quite challenging. I think it probably works better on larger pieces since things were getting tight trying to fit all the crown facets on such a small area. Also I think I overcut the table making it too large and maybe causing some windowing. At some angles the stone looks good, but the pavilion features kind of phase out at a lot of oblique angles. I may have to try cutting this one again on a larger piece of rough.

4.565 ct left and 1.73 ct right

Standard round brilliant cut (SRB)

Stones #10 and #11 for me were done on some Madeira Citrine I had lying around. I decided to try my hand at the next step up from the simple brilliant cut I had done on the amethysts. Funny enough, the bigger one was cut first and took me a long time because I had to recut the pavilion as well as the girdle. I accidentally started cutting on the wrong index for the girdle making me redo all the girdle facets. When I cut the pavilion break facets, I didn’t finish cutting to a center point because I thought cutting the main facets would bring it to a point. Turns out cutting the main facets barely moves the center point. I narrowly didn’t have enough room for the table. I didn’t even cut the table and went straight to 1200 LL and cerium oxide as it happened to be at the exact height to meet the star facets. Funny enough this was probably my best yield at around 30%.

The next one ended up much smaller, but I did have to go through all the steps. I probably could have dopped better, as it ended up too close to one of the edges forcing me to cut away much of the rough. Much quicker to cut taking me only 2.5 hrs of cutting time, but I lost 90% of the weight as waste. Still working on getting consistently better yield.

I did enjoy cutting the SRB even though it feels like the PSL of the hobby.

Alpha brilliance cut by Jeff Ford

1.38 and 1.4 ct natural amethyst

I tried to challenge myself to cut a matched pair. I think I made a decent effort, though there was a .2 ct weight difference and a .2mm diameter difference. Also one has a larger table, and that seems to be the biggest deal as far as I can tell. This version of the round brilliant cut was pretty easy since all the cuts are basically the same depth. It is simplified from the SRB in that the crown star facets and pavilion break facets are omitted.