Sneaky, you are getting very good at this mate, top job.
Sneaky Gems.
- Thread starter SneakyCuttlefish
- Start date
Help Support Prospecting Australia:
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
Just gotta love those Swiss Smokys. Omnirek rectangle. Its a barrion rectangle design with a stepped crown. My scales have karcked it but I'm assuming it will be around 20 carats.
Wow!! Beautiful stone mate, really looking forward to seeing the next ones you do as well. :Y:
Would you be interested in maybe cutting a few sapphires for me and a mate in the future? Happy to pay you for your time and effort.
Would you be interested in maybe cutting a few sapphires for me and a mate in the future? Happy to pay you for your time and effort.
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
Hi heatho. It would be a pleasure to cut some stones for you. I'll shoot a PM to you.
Heatho said:Wow!! Beautiful stone mate, really looking forward to seeing the next ones you do as well. :Y:
Would you be interested in maybe cutting a few sapphires for me and a mate in the future? Happy to pay you for your time and effort.
Heatho,
Carol and I can certainly vouch for Sneakies work :Y: :Y: :Y: . A top job and a true gentleman.
That's a nice smoky Justin, keep up the good work.
Cheers
Doug and Carol
Chiron52
Dave
Awesome stone SC.
Love your work mate.
Keep the pics coming.
:Y: :Y: :Y:
Love your work mate.
Keep the pics coming.
:Y: :Y: :Y:
- Joined
- May 1, 2014
- Messages
- 1,958
- Reaction score
- 2,530
Very nice job on both those stones there SC :Y: Smokies at just the right colour shade make a fantastic-looking gem. Just the right hardness for mounting in general jewellery as well.
Nice pentagon there - 80 index gear? I finally got myself one the other day and turned out a pentagon in light Rose-de-France amethyst, came out beautifully after I modified the design a little as I felt it had been slightly overdone.
Now I just need to be able to actually photograph the things :/
Nice pentagon there - 80 index gear? I finally got myself one the other day and turned out a pentagon in light Rose-de-France amethyst, came out beautifully after I modified the design a little as I felt it had been slightly overdone.
Now I just need to be able to actually photograph the things :/
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the feedback.
Lefty, the pentagon was designed on a 96 index. I have found the 96 is the most versitile index for medium complicated designs. The 64 works an absolute treat for most commercial designs and for designs with mirror symetry that divides nicely into 64. I.e 4,8,16, 32 mirror symetry.
Im working on a 120 index round but this index is very hard to get right. Probably why there is very few 120 designs out there (comparitively speaking)
Not sure where the omnirek design came from. It has been suiting in my custom folder for a long time now. I can't remember if it was an adaptation or a new design so i am not going to claim to have designed it until i have gone back over my notes. Least thing i would want is to inadvertently infringe on someone else's work. That's the quickest and most effective way to ruin ones own reputation.
Lefty, the pentagon was designed on a 96 index. I have found the 96 is the most versitile index for medium complicated designs. The 64 works an absolute treat for most commercial designs and for designs with mirror symetry that divides nicely into 64. I.e 4,8,16, 32 mirror symetry.
Im working on a 120 index round but this index is very hard to get right. Probably why there is very few 120 designs out there (comparitively speaking)
Not sure where the omnirek design came from. It has been suiting in my custom folder for a long time now. I can't remember if it was an adaptation or a new design so i am not going to claim to have designed it until i have gone back over my notes. Least thing i would want is to inadvertently infringe on someone else's work. That's the quickest and most effective way to ruin ones own reputation.
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
I have finally built up the courage (and equipment) to make a start on this 1/2 kg chunk of Morganite. It is very heavily included and was cut from a 3.5 kg crystal by my mentor many years ago. He has one crystal remaining that he has never cut up and it weighs around 3kg. These huge crystals where bought in Minas Gerias, Brazil back when semi precious gems where cheap as chips. Sadly the colour for this piece is not so strong and the smaller stones that will come out of this will be very light pink.
From my observations there is potentially 2 stones that will exceed 20 carats that may be eye clean. It would be possible to cut 2 stones that would go 50 carats each with good colour however the value would be significantly downgraded by the inclusions. There will most likely be over a hundred small 1 carat stones which will be very light pink to almost colourless. Some of the 50+ larger stones should show jewellery grade colour but the trick will be to navigate around the extensive fissures and cracks. I'm guessing this will take around 4-6 months to complete cutting of all the pieces. Possibly longer if I get bored and decide to cut other stones in between.
First thing to do is carefully map all the major flaws and work out a plan to start slabbing. The idea is to use the slabbing process to remove most of the major flaws whilst preserving the largest clean areas possible. In this round I will be taking one piece of the end and dividing into individual stones. This should provide me with another clean cut to see into the stone to map out the next cut at a later date.
This stuff is really nice to cut. Just makes a bit of a mess with little chips flying off when the blade exits the stone. As expected the smaller stones are very very light.
From my observations there is potentially 2 stones that will exceed 20 carats that may be eye clean. It would be possible to cut 2 stones that would go 50 carats each with good colour however the value would be significantly downgraded by the inclusions. There will most likely be over a hundred small 1 carat stones which will be very light pink to almost colourless. Some of the 50+ larger stones should show jewellery grade colour but the trick will be to navigate around the extensive fissures and cracks. I'm guessing this will take around 4-6 months to complete cutting of all the pieces. Possibly longer if I get bored and decide to cut other stones in between.
First thing to do is carefully map all the major flaws and work out a plan to start slabbing. The idea is to use the slabbing process to remove most of the major flaws whilst preserving the largest clean areas possible. In this round I will be taking one piece of the end and dividing into individual stones. This should provide me with another clean cut to see into the stone to map out the next cut at a later date.
This stuff is really nice to cut. Just makes a bit of a mess with little chips flying off when the blade exits the stone. As expected the smaller stones are very very light.
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
I have a Christmas present for the cabbing enthusiasts out there. First to send me Pm gets it. In the top image you can see an inclusion of some kind of mineral. I have removed it from the stone and I think it would look fantastic cabbed up. Its hard to tell from the photo but it has the same effect as the moss agates except in morganite. Free to good home. My only request is that you send me a good pic of the finished stone.
- Joined
- May 1, 2014
- Messages
- 1,958
- Reaction score
- 2,530
Yep, that's a good point. You should never claim that you created an existing design that somebody else actually came up with. Give credit to the actual designer.
I think it's actually a bit of an interesting topic owing to the fact that very few things are truly original and most things are either an adaptation of or else very closely resemble something that pre-dates them. The website Facetdiagrams.org has around 4500 diagrams and there are books and websites with many, many more again. There are such an extrordinary number of faceting diagrams in existence that it's difficult to imagine that it would be at all easy to design one that doesn't closely resemble one that already exists out there somewhere, published or unpublished.
The great South African diamond cutter Basil Watermeyer is credited with having invented the barion concept during the 1970's, which many designs employ today. While I think it likely that it's completely original to him, I also think it's easily possible that someone else did it before him but never sought acclaim. After all, it's just putting some half-moon shaped facets around the top of a round brilliant-type pavilion to allow it to be attached to a different shaped crown - a very logical idea that anyone with a relatively small amount of faceting experience could have come up with.
Plus nowdays almost anyone with ability to use a computer and some design software - probably hundreds of millions of people - can probably come up with a faceting design after a bit of mucking around and maybe even copyright it as well - but how many of them have the ability to actually turn the model on the computer screen into a real, finished gem?
Of course, whenever we build a design from scratch and then see it through to completion, we should feel a sense of accomplishment and feel that it is ours. It's just that I always wonder how original I'm really being - if I really went searching long and hard, would I come across an existing design that so closely resembles what I've done that it's virtually the same thing?
Dam, missed out... 8) Have to keep a better eye out next time... ]
LW.....
8) Have to keep a better eye out next time... ] LW.....
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
Don't worry LW. Will be plenty more to come in the future. Actually I have some nice amethyst pieces that are cab grade. Not big pieces but they have good colour. PM me if your interested.
...I have about 7kg of Amethyst from Cloncurry, Canungra, Brazil and a piece from WA :Y: . A few bits are Cutters... I think 8) ... Love My Amethyst.. ] Where about are your stones from?
Keen on some Topaz if you have any left ...
More like 2nd grade tho, as I will be encasing them in Epoxy Resin, I don't need 1st grade cutters... LW... with eyes open... :lol:
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
Lefty,
I have had a very vigorous schooling in intellectual property rights and how to protect them from a recent dispute over plant breeding and invasive IP clauses in employment contracts. You are certainly on an interesting track when considering what the interpretation of intellectual property actually is. The reality is most designs on the internet are not protected. Simply claiming you designed something is not a legal proof of ownership. The only way to guarantee that you own a design is to apply for and receive a patent over it. There is some case law where IP has been upheld without formal acknowledgement of ownership but the onus is on the claimant to prove they designed it and someone else stole it.
It is entirely possible to sit down and belt out a design on gemcad that even though it was built from scratch with no outside influence what so ever, just happens to look very much like someone else's design. Especially when considering that each index gear has a finite number of teeth and most machines operate within the same angle parameters. This means there is only a finite number of combinations one can design before running out of new shapes and designs. Replication is almost guaranteed at some point.
In the end it's on the person who makes claim of ownership to be acting with integrity and honesty especially with a completely under-protected subject like facet diagrams. Personally I support the free flow of design and IP for facet diagrams and am very glad that no-one (most likely) has ever been sued over theft of a design.
I have had a very vigorous schooling in intellectual property rights and how to protect them from a recent dispute over plant breeding and invasive IP clauses in employment contracts. You are certainly on an interesting track when considering what the interpretation of intellectual property actually is. The reality is most designs on the internet are not protected. Simply claiming you designed something is not a legal proof of ownership. The only way to guarantee that you own a design is to apply for and receive a patent over it. There is some case law where IP has been upheld without formal acknowledgement of ownership but the onus is on the claimant to prove they designed it and someone else stole it.
It is entirely possible to sit down and belt out a design on gemcad that even though it was built from scratch with no outside influence what so ever, just happens to look very much like someone else's design. Especially when considering that each index gear has a finite number of teeth and most machines operate within the same angle parameters. This means there is only a finite number of combinations one can design before running out of new shapes and designs. Replication is almost guaranteed at some point.
In the end it's on the person who makes claim of ownership to be acting with integrity and honesty especially with a completely under-protected subject like facet diagrams. Personally I support the free flow of design and IP for facet diagrams and am very glad that no-one (most likely) has ever been sued over theft of a design.
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2014
- Messages
- 316
- Reaction score
- 837
I have been hammering through the morganite chunks. Beryl is great material to work with and takes a diamond polish very quickly. Trick is to orientate it correctly as Morganite is moderately pleochroic. (different colours/shades from different angles)
As expected the small peices (20 carats and under) are a very light salmon pink. Almost undetectable. If one didn't know where the stones came from the smaller ones would be easily confused with goshenite (white beryl). This piece is around SI clarity (small bubbles in on corner) and is a custom design based on a standard square emerald shape. Decided to call it a Conflicted Crown Cut. It performs exceptionally well in RI's from 1.6 to 1.8 but I had to bend a few rules to get it to work in the Beryl.
Surprisingly certain lighting combinations have unusual effects on this type of stone. Running a polarised yellow light through the back of the stone brings out blues. I double checked to make sure there was nothing blue in the back ground that was reflecting.
As expected the small peices (20 carats and under) are a very light salmon pink. Almost undetectable. If one didn't know where the stones came from the smaller ones would be easily confused with goshenite (white beryl). This piece is around SI clarity (small bubbles in on corner) and is a custom design based on a standard square emerald shape. Decided to call it a Conflicted Crown Cut. It performs exceptionally well in RI's from 1.6 to 1.8 but I had to bend a few rules to get it to work in the Beryl.
Surprisingly certain lighting combinations have unusual effects on this type of stone. Running a polarised yellow light through the back of the stone brings out blues. I double checked to make sure there was nothing blue in the back ground that was reflecting.
Another Well Cut Stone.... Very Nice... :Y:
LW....
LW....
Fantastic looking stone, really amazing looking material. :Y:
