Nice work diggertom, it doesn't take long at all to get used to cabbing and the results are always more impressive than you expect! I wish I had someone to teach me properly in a class but the YouTube vids work for now
This one was meant to be double sided but the back had a big chunk come out of it whilst I was shapping it, didn't want to waste a pretty stone though, almost has a cherry blossom look to it.
Oh good, after lasts nights effort I'm a fourhundreddoallaraire
Can't post any photos, no home computer. Little sapphire, finished about .8 of a carat. A nice, clear mid-green with a yellow flash. Only my second sapphire (third counting the star sapphire I cabbed), same issue as the star - the facets have a pronounced tendency to pit and peel. My polishing efforts eventually prevailed but it took a while. I expect the peeling is actually occurring during cutting the facets and the polishing is simply revealing what is already there but cannot be seen until polishing.
Finished one of those Mount Gibson topaz for father-in-law, cut again in the Lighthouse cut. The piece of rough was ideally suited i thought, almost perfectly square and with virtually no cracks or flaws. It finished a very nice stone but I didn't get back as much carat weight as I was expecting from such a near-perfect piece of rough. Lighthouse is a bit shallow, probably ate up good material unneccessarily. Should have done a different square cut, mebbe a modified square brilliant or something. Oh well, you live and learn.
A citrine, with a cut typical from Asia/middle east, it had a huge window (it still has, but less disturbing) and it showed nearly no brilliance.
I lost 1mm (LxW went from 11x11mm to 10x10) in the process of recutting, but the stone is much more appealing now.
Welcome to the new rough. Buying crap cut stones and recutting. soon it will be the only sourse of rough not from our own creeks and even they are becomming harder to axcess sites for.