⭐ Show Us Your Cut Stones - Before And After Photos
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Looks like third time lucky!
Cut this O'brien's topaz after work, over a couple of days. Has a few very slight inclusions. Mainly bubbles and a few minute steaks of rutile.
Its a standard hexagonal barion cut and comes it at around 11mm. This was my first time using a 6" BATT lap with 60,000 diamond polish and I absolutely love the results. Might up it to 100,000 grit next time though.
Cut this O'brien's topaz after work, over a couple of days. Has a few very slight inclusions. Mainly bubbles and a few minute steaks of rutile.
Its a standard hexagonal barion cut and comes it at around 11mm. This was my first time using a 6" BATT lap with 60,000 diamond polish and I absolutely love the results. Might up it to 100,000 grit next time though.
Looks good to me, Sneaky.
Jaros
Jaros
richo966 said:I have one like that but it is blue do you get blue stars
Sure do Richo.
Beautiful stones
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SneakyCuttlefish said:
Nice stone there SC
I haven't stopped since I got my machine last weekend. I just finished a piece of amethyst from Lowmead and as happy as I am with it, I can't see much point in posting a picture. The camera just can't seem to capture what it looks like to the eye, brilliant rainbow scintillation in a clear, mid-purple stone.The camera seems to capture cabochons ok, picking up the pattern and detail in the opaque surface but I think you would need video at the very least to get an idea of the kind of life in a faceted stone.
This is not to suggest that others should not post photos of faceted stones
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Gold689 said:Some of the Blue Star Sapphire looks like this,
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/421/1431236055_gold689..jpg
They are from one big bomb dog toothed that I found on the creek.
Very nice looking stars there
- mine are all black with a gold star. We do get other coloured stars on the field up here but I have only found the black ones so far.
Very nice Gold689, they are fantastic.
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Lefty said:SneakyCuttlefish said:
Nice stone there SC
The camera seems to capture cabochons ok, picking up the pattern and detail in the opaque surface but I think you would need video at the very least to get an idea of the kind of life in a faceted stone.
This is not to suggest that others should not post photos of faceted stones
Couldn't agree more lefty. It is very difficult to capture a stone well in a photo. This picture just does not do it any justice but that was the best I could do with an iPhone. I will be getting a camera with a macro lens for photographing cacti soon. Maybe that will produce a better picture.
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Where's the stone lefty ?
Get your head out from under the new machine and take a photo
Get your head out from under the new machine and take a photo
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Ok, promise I'll try and take a decent photo of it Barney You definately can't appreciate a faceted stone at it's best with a still photo because the scintillation arising from movement is such a big part of what makes it what it is.
Decided it was time to finally venture away from rounds today and try my hand at a square. I chose a simple design - "tic-tac" by Jeff Graham. I had no problems bringing the piece of material to a neat square pyramid. But it was a bit trickier in other ways, you can't look at two touching corner facets at the same time because one is around the corner from the other and out of veiw. At least it is with a bigger stone. The pavillion is cut now anyway and awaiting the final polish. I'll do that tomorrow night since I plan to go for a dig tomorrow.
You definately can't appreciate a faceted stone at it's best with a still photo because the scintillation arising from movement is such a big part of what makes it what it is.Decided it was time to finally venture away from rounds today and try my hand at a square. I chose a simple design - "tic-tac" by Jeff Graham. I had no problems bringing the piece of material to a neat square pyramid. But it was a bit trickier in other ways, you can't look at two touching corner facets at the same time because one is around the corner from the other and out of veiw. At least it is with a bigger stone. The pavillion is cut now anyway and awaiting the final polish. I'll do that tomorrow night since I plan to go for a dig tomorrow.
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daniallier said:
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Just finished this one. It looks good but the finished product isn't what I had hoped for. This is a modified el dorado brilliant cut. 15mm topaz. Ill add the carat weight this afternoon.
The rough had a thick but very light blue zone running at 90 degrees to the table. Unfortunately I failed to spot a flaw in the crown that ended up penetrating the table so had to remove 16 facets from the top to bring the table height down enough take most of the flaw out. A small amount can still be seen at the 7 o'clock position in the photo. A very large table coupled with a few angle changes resulted in a lot of the color bleeding out of the crown sides instead of being reflected back into the stone and out through the table. As can be seen at the 2 o'clock position.
Anyway, this was a very difficult cut for me as I haven't had to deviate so far from the original design before. I also found that when using an old machine and old laps even the slightest bit of wear and tear can effect the accuracy hugely. It would appear over time the play in the joints and locks for the head has made it a bit more flexible then it should be so constant eyeballing is required to get even the most basic cuts right. Another issue I encountered is rust specks on the 3000 pre-polish lap that reduce my usable space to a narrow band. This issue resulted in a 4 hour polish, just for the table alone. This will probably be my last stone for a while as I don't want to invest the time and my hard won material on this particular machine.
Facetron or Ultra tec.... hmm??
The rough had a thick but very light blue zone running at 90 degrees to the table. Unfortunately I failed to spot a flaw in the crown that ended up penetrating the table so had to remove 16 facets from the top to bring the table height down enough take most of the flaw out. A small amount can still be seen at the 7 o'clock position in the photo. A very large table coupled with a few angle changes resulted in a lot of the color bleeding out of the crown sides instead of being reflected back into the stone and out through the table. As can be seen at the 2 o'clock position.
Anyway, this was a very difficult cut for me as I haven't had to deviate so far from the original design before. I also found that when using an old machine and old laps even the slightest bit of wear and tear can effect the accuracy hugely. It would appear over time the play in the joints and locks for the head has made it a bit more flexible then it should be so constant eyeballing is required to get even the most basic cuts right. Another issue I encountered is rust specks on the 3000 pre-polish lap that reduce my usable space to a narrow band. This issue resulted in a 4 hour polish, just for the table alone. This will probably be my last stone for a while as I don't want to invest the time and my hard won material on this particular machine.
Facetron or Ultra tec.... hmm??
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Ultratec are too high and noisy, facetron too high and motors need fuses changed often. Both aren't the best motoring systems in my opinion but unfortunately thay are excellent in every other way. Go VJ or Gemmasta depending on your budget.
Regards Anthony
http://facetinglaps.blogspot.com.au/
Regards Anthony
http://facetinglaps.blogspot.com.au/
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Thanks for the heads up rough2cut. I'll look into them!
daniallier said:
Need a larger photo mate, a Diamond tester should tell you if it is or not, you can buy them on ebay for less than $30.
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Ok, here is that little amethyst. As usual, the photo doesn't look much like what the eye sees.
The cmaera appears to show a sort of slightly browinsh tinted stone with an inclusion - it has neither, it is a clean, bright mid-purple stone with pinkish overtones. I'm most happy with this stone out of what I have faceted so far.
Has anyone faceted something called "Crishinite?". I was given a few pieces of synthetic with that written on the label, along with "topaz-oriented". I have found it impossible to polish, it just continuously scratches. Fearing contamination, I polished a garnet and a zircon on the same lap - no scratches. Returned the crishinite to the lap - it resumed scratching badly. I can't find any references to that name on the web.
The cmaera appears to show a sort of slightly browinsh tinted stone with an inclusion - it has neither, it is a clean, bright mid-purple stone with pinkish overtones. I'm most happy with this stone out of what I have faceted so far.
Has anyone faceted something called "Crishinite?". I was given a few pieces of synthetic with that written on the label, along with "topaz-oriented". I have found it impossible to polish, it just continuously scratches. Fearing contamination, I polished a garnet and a zircon on the same lap - no scratches. Returned the crishinite to the lap - it resumed scratching badly. I can't find any references to that name on the web.
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