r/faceting

TLDR, should I translate the angles on my faceting diagrams to account for my angle dial not being accurate?

Hello! This is my first post on Reddit.
I am new to faceting, and just sort of happened upon some faceting equipment at my office that I have free use of (I’m so lucky!!).
The Graves Mark 5xl faceting machine works great and has all its parts (again, very lucky). However, the digital angle dial is about 1.1° off. When I put a machined block on the lap and square it up, the dial reads 88.9°. I have tried to look up a way to calibrate the dial, but have had no success.
Is 1.1° enough to make a difference?
Now that I’m writing this out, it seems silly. This is just a hobby for me. I likely won’t be selling any of these gems. The 1.1° surely will not be noticeable. However, I just can’t seem to get my mind off the fact that I can’t find a way to calibrate it!
I figured if I can’t get it calibrated, I could just “calibrate” the faceting diagram to account for the difference by subtracting 1.1 from each angle (I think?). But now that I think of it, accounting for angles on the pavilion will be different/opposite from on the crown once it’s flipped over after the dop transfer. Maybe this is not worth my time and energy after all.
Any ideas? What would you do?
Thanks so much!

Material: CZ

9mm flat to point.

I'm really happy with how this came out. Planning on modifying the design so it will work with garnet and sapphires.

Actually it was a marble. It's not perfect. I was over shooting some of the facets so it's lopsided. And it didnt polish very well on the crown or the table. The guy who was teaching me said it was the material that was the polishing issue. Any suggestions on what kind of material I should try next. (Don't want it to be too expensive.)

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. 💎

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.

I took a course learning from a fantastic master gem cutter this was my first stone the pattern is called accent. i still need to do a octagonal step cut before I can pass the course but i’ve never touched a faceting machine before this too. Looking forward to making the other one! I’m addicted already.
stone is a Lab CZ

I have been playing with switchback pavilions and stumbled upon this combination with a step cut crown and I love it! Please let me know what you think?

Designed with GCS and cut by me

Sky blue topaz

5.57ct

10.1x9.1mm 6.9mm deep

Cut sequence 250,500,60k

I’m using a fantastic Andrew Brown design, but I can’t remember the name. Will edit that in later!