r/faceting

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.

I’ve started my first gem (we don’t talk about my actual first gem, they’re all cheap gems from Amazon so I won’t waste money while learning), but now that I’ve done the p1 facets, I’m having trouble with the p2 girdle cuts. I can’t lower my faceting head low enough while the height adjuster is on (even when divided in half), but having no height adjuster makes it too low as well as has the index wheel collide with the screw on the manipulator (seen in the last photo.)

I’m definitely doing something wrong, but I cannot figure out how to solve this issue. It’s a cheaper machine— the classic vevor one— so I knew I’d run into issues, but one that bothers me right now is just how sparse the user manual is. I do have the “Amateur Gemstone Faceting Volume1: the Essentials” by Tom Herbst which has been really helpful, but its advice can’t cover every machine. Mine certainly has some exceptions that it doesn’t help with.

Any advice with lowering the height to cut the girdle correctly would be super appreciated, thanks!

Can anyone tell me what shape this is? Doesn't look like a Dutch marq to me

My bad eyes are thanking me, also dont look at the meets theyre not finished haha.

Three part question here. Well, first i got some explainin' to do.

I transferred the stone to a new dop for the crown. Pretty smooth and had it lined up with the pavillion. Hit the 85-11 facets which would go down to the girdle with 96 side. But the stone wanted otherwise. It flew off! ... I had trouble glueing it back perfectly . This video shows the 85-96-11 facets. They are to the left to where all should hit. Anddd I have never used the cheater before. I saw the diagram that says "polish not hitting right side, turn cheater to the left" So heres where i ask for help-

First, the guide saying "to the left" means counterclockwise correct? I will need it counterclockwise then. But is this too big of an adjustment to use a cheater for? Being that the guide says for polishing.

Also would every facet for the crown follow the same cheater adj once i get the 85-96-11 straightened? I would think since the whole stone is misaligned. And for the opposite side?

Better off redopping? I was thinking to disolve the glue and redop, but i dont think i will get it perfectly aligned to the pavillion. Thats always tricky for me especially since the dop to the pavilloon is no longer there for an indication. Maybee measure the stone to put dop toucing crown first and then redop the one i need.

I use loctite 404 in the yellow glue btw. Usually good when i wait a day. Also i use a left handed machine and run the discs counterclockwise if that makes a difference for the cheater. I can share the diagram if that helps decide. Stone is a tanzanite that hopefully wont turn into a monster at the hands of dr frnkenstein

So heres where i am for the night. Thanks for any advice

While I have the 80-index gear attached, I decided to make another pentagon. I think it passes the "is it pretty?" test but I'm still climbing the steep part of the learning curve and it shows. I'm a big fan of this material and the two colors it shows.

• Material: #55(ish) corundum straight from Alibaba
• Design: Pentagrammin by Jeffrey Hill
• Cutting sequence: 400 topper, 600 sintered, 3000 Active-8 on BATT, 60K Pandimonium PCD on BATT

Lessons learned

• I'm still having a hard time judging how far to leave meets short for prepolishing. I end up being so conservative that I leave myself waaaay too much to prepolish and it takes a lot longer than it should. Using Active-8 does mitigate this somewhat because it really moves facets but when I'm this inefficient it leads to screw-ups. In spite of leaving facets short by a mile, I still managed to overcut a few during prepolish. Oops.
• I typically cut everything, then prepolish everything, then polish everything but since this has a barion tier, I tried prepolishing/polishing P1 and G1 before moving on so I didn't have to deal with the barion tier in the way. Overall that seemed to work well.

https://reddit.com/link/1vqgd4s/video/oih52inymujh1/player

Over 75 carats (15 grams) of spinel, very excited to put these to a machine and see what I can get out of it. Not expecting anything insane obviously but I’d be more than happy if I can get some cabs and maybe a few faceted stones out of this.

Can anyone provide any tips for working with spinel? I have very little experience making cabochon and even less faceting and I’m almost wondering if I should forget that I have this until I’ve got more completed projects under my belt.

I mean genuinely any advice at all is amazing, I know there are plenty of resources online but there’s nothing better than hearing it from the mouth of someone with real experience.

For my personal collection, not for sale

I need to run a drain from the drainage pipe into a bucket under my desk. The pipe is 15.5-16mm wide. What material can I get to fit over and snake it below my desk? Last clear “plastic-y” pipe material I had was very stiff. It was 3/4inch (19mm) inner diameter which worked alright. Would like more flexibility.

I just finished this stone on my Sterling. Pretty happy with how it came out. The design was fairly easy and with a clear piece it looks pretty good.

Final weight 1.70ct, internally flawless.

Cut in a freestyle design I made on the fly. Measures 53 x 44mm.