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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 9:21 pm 
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Hi, Chris,

I read your dilemma is when you mount your mast low for you to be able to cut the girdle, the mast is not long/high enough for cutting the table due to the added height of the table block.

Here are a few pictures of my faceting machine set up to cut at various angles.

ImageCutting the girdle: the mast height is 14.1 cm. (the height is indicated from the top = 0 cm in my machine.) The mast is far away from the lap.

ImageCutting a 5-degree facet: the mast height is 2.1cm. The mast is close to the lap.

ImageCutting a 45-degree facet: the mast height is 6.6 cm. The mast is in between.

ImageCutting the table with the table block: the mast height is 5.6 cm. The mast is located the same as the above.

So it is not when the faceting head is used at the highest position, when I cut the table. But it is when I cut very low angle facets. I am puzzled why your faceting head is at the highest position on the mast when you are using the table block. One thing I see is my dop is not sticking out from the table block like your pictures.

In my machine the faceting head should be able to move at least 12 cm (4.7+ inches) up and down on the mast. The mast itself has to be longer to accommodate the base and some extra for the top.

How long is your mast? How much room is there to slide the mast base? Mine is about 19 cm (7-1/2 inches). The dimensions are different from machine to machine. I want to show an example of set-up.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:37 pm 
Something weird is going on with this forum, i see now how I've missed people's posts before!

I cant see the post from mhuynh unless I click reply to the post, and THEN I can see it below the field to type in, but before I try to post, I can ONLY see the reply from MK.

It's not my PC, I've cleared my cache and cookies and refreshed and ctrl F5 and all they, no difference, the form ONLY shows me mhuynh's post when I hit the reply button, weird!

Anyhow, on to the real issue at hand, I think I'm agreeing with MK, the thing is too long.

I'll post a couple pics below to show you what I mean by just holding the unit on top of a piece of aluminum to simulate it being mounted to the mount, and if you notice the position where the piece of aluminum meets the side of the flat lap, you will see that it is very far down, and MK is right again in that the adjusting collar is very thick, and prohibits the whole thing from being able to slide down far enough to cut at that flat angle, unless I lower the mount the distance that the height adjustment is high.

If I removed that height adjustment collar, I would not have to mount it as low as I would have to in order to cut the girdle horizontally like that.

All of the machines such as mhuynh's machine have a shorter distance between quill at the protractor to the collet, and also, your table adapter does not have the dop sticking out so far like mine does. There is a little thing poking out of every brass dop that prohibits the dop from sinking too far into the collet, in the case of the table adapter, it makes it have to be way at the top of the mast to be able to use it.

Surely this is not a design flaw of the faceting unit? I saw a picture of a whole room of these exact faceting units mounted on the sides of flat lap machines in China, in a commercial gem cutting house, and the thing was not way up at the top of the mast, it was half way down around the middle when they were cutting stones.

Is it possible that this device for some odd reason is not meant to be lowered that low to cut a girdle at a flat horizontal angle? Are all the gems cut with these things done in a different way?

Now I'm really confused!

In the picture below, I'm holding the unit on top of a piece of aluminum, to pretend it's mounted on the top of the mount, so you can see where it needs to be height wise on the side of the flat lap, pretty far down to cut like this, mainly, because of the height adjustment locking collar on the mast. If I removed it, I could mount the mount higher up on the side of the flat lap, but then, how would I precision adjust the height to get a completely proper cut girdle?
Image

Below is a picture of the table adapter mounted on the collet, showing how high up it needs to be, this with the aluminum plate held at the "same" position on the side of the flat lap as it was when the above picture was taken to simulate a girdle cut angle.
And this is not taking into consideration if I had a large gem mounted on the dop!
How do I remedy this issue??

If I raise the mount up so that the unit is not at the top of the mast for all cuts but the girdle cut, then I cannot get it low enough to cut a girdle cut later!

When I bought this unit, I was told it could just be mounted easily onto the edge of my flat lap, as long as I got the angle equal to that of the cutting plane of the disk, never did I consider there would be THIS issue!
Image


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:10 pm 
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I think you're going to need a slot in the silver bar or whatever you mount the mast to to move the entire mast back and forth.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:13 pm 
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What happens if you stack two laps on your platen? You might need a longer screw to hold the laps down, but it should solve your mast length issue.


Last edited by lorne144man on Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:13 pm 
no no no....
That bar isn't the mount!

It's just being held there like a ruler to show the height on the side of the flat lap where it mounts!

I have a mount that has a 4 corner fine tune adjustment, that has a slot in it to move it backwards and forwards, I'm just trying to show the height thing on the side of the flat lap, relative to the position of the quill and the rest of it during the cutting of the girdle, and the rest of the cuts!

The mount itself isn't the issue, it's the HEIGHT that I'm trying to figure out!

;)


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:18 pm 
lorne144man wrote:
What happens if you stack two laps on your platen? You might need a longer screw to hold the laps down, but it should solve your mast length issue.


Yeah, I thought about that whole "Mohammad coming to the mountain thing"...LOL

Meaning if I can't bring the proper height to the lap's top surface, then bring thre lap higher.

I've been thinking of all the variables, and some way to make this all mate up properly, without having to "mickey mouse" anything more than I have to.

It seems to me that no matter what, I'm going to be faced with making some kind of height adjustment for the mount itself, I don't know how to really get around it, I just thought that I was missing something here, and someone out there might give me a slap in the side of the head and say "look stupid, it's like this......", but apparently, it's not an easy fix, like most things turn out.

what I want to know is even if I had a professionally built flat lap made for faceting, HOW would this thing mount on it, and still be able to lay flat to cut the girdle, and still be able to have the mast high enough to cut the rest? I don't think that this unit would even be able to work properly on a commercially made lap, because of the same issues.


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:20 pm 
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Two things I don't understand;
Why is the dop stick mounted so high in the adapter? 1 mm sticking out is more than enough.
What is that spring behind your quill for? It looks like it takes up a lot of valuable room.
Who said that girdles have to be at 90 degrees?

OK that's 3 things...

Tony.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:31 pm 
gemsevermore wrote:
Nope. You're not doing this the easy way. :) I know, because my faceting quill and mast are exactly like the one in your picture. It can, however, be done.

First, to mount your mast, notice the slot in the base of your mast assembly. That will need to be bolted to your flat lap machine on a surface that is exactly parallel to your spinning lap. You need this surface to be as close to precisely parallel as possible. As you change faceting angles, you will want to rotate and lock the mast at different positions so you are different distances from the lap. For angles near 0 degrees, you want to be very close. For girdling at 90 degrees, you want to be far away.

My machine has a slot with a t-bolt coming up out of it. The mast is held down by a large gnurled nut that I can tighten or loosen by hand. When I change angles, I loosen the nut, rotate the mast assembly toward or away from the lap, and tighten it up again. I have the bolt positioned so that when the mast is closest to the lap, it is about 1/2 inch from the lap's rim. That gives me all the range I need for everything from cutting a table to cutting a girdle. The trick is that at every position, the mast MUST be as perfectly perpendicular to the lap as you can make it!

Once you get that done, you can try to use it. I have noticed two main problems with this setup. First, the quill tends to jump out of its bracket, altering the angle of the facet in unpredictable ways. You have to use firm pressure by hand to hold the quill in the bracket as you are cutting. As you get closer to the table angle, this effect is more pronounced. It is essential that you get, or make, a table tool to cut designs with tables. Mine is a rectangular piece of steel with a tube on one side that slides along the mast, and parallel tube and set screw on the other side that holds the dop.

Second, the collet does not hold the dop firmly enough, especially for harder stones. To counter this, I have adopted the practice of locking the stone in place, then putting two drops of Loctite on the collet where it meets the dop. You have to wait until the glue sets before you start cutting, and you have to dissolve all the glue out of the collet before transferring or starting a new stone, but it works.

You are going to be very frustrated at first, but if you are persistent, patient, and a pathological problem solver, you can eventually cut some beautiful stones. On the other hand, you could just shell out the cash for a Graves or Facetron or something, and save yourself a lot of time and frustration. As a reference, I have been using my machine for almost 2 years now, and I still take a day for a pavilion, and a day for a crown, and my meetpoints are still not exactly to USFG Master Faceter standards. (OK, so I'm only actually cutting for maybe half of that time. But still.)


gemsevermore, I have read your post a few times now, trying to understand what you did to get this faceting unit to work good for you.

I pretty much understand everything that you said, but you did not mention the one thing that I am having problems with, the HEIGHT!

I am assuming that you had no choice about the height, as you had to mount it on the predetermined factory made slot on your preexisting lap? Or, did you have to make your own mount like I did?

If you did have a choice of the height, how high in relation to the top of the cutting plane of the disk did you mount yours? I have the ability to also mount the base of the mast about 1/2" from the edge of the master lap edge, I just need to know how HIGH to mount it.

Are you working at the top of the mast for cutting everything from 45 - 0 degrees then? If you can cut at 90 degrees, totally flat, then I'm assuming that from 0 - 45 degrees, you must be raised way up to the top of the mast like in my pictures.

I have the table adapter that came with the unit, the dop only slides in to the aluminum block so far, and then stops, thus resulting in the issue of being higher towards the top of the mast. All those little distances add up, and push it further and further up the mast!

All of my brass dops have a little round bar sticking out of the side of it, which serves to lock the dop into place in the collet. If you unscrew the end, and look at the jaws that grab the dop, (at least in mine) there is one of the spaces between the teeth of the jaw that has a small groove cut in it, and that is where that little stop sticking outta the dop fits into, thus preventing the dop from spinning during use, however, I notice that up at the gear, there is a set screw that holds the whole quill and gear together, and if that is not tightened, it will come loose, and the whole quill can then turn freely, which of course is not good.

So, how exactly did you mount YOURS to get it to work?

chris ;)


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:41 pm 
TheGemDr wrote:
Two things I don't understand;
Why is the dop stick mounted so high in the adapter? 1 mm sticking out is more than enough.
What is that spring behind your quill for? It looks like it takes up a lot of valuable room.
Who said that girdles have to be at 90 degrees?

OK that's 3 things...

Tony.


Hi Tony, well, as far as if the girdle needs to be 90 degrees, well that is my inexperience in faceting talking, I don't know yet how the girdle should be cut! I'm sure once I learn to facet, all of my questions will be totally obvious to me, as then I will know, but NOW, I DON'T know how to facet yet, so I don't know anything other than what I have read, one of which is that the device needs to have the ability to cut at 90 degrees, is this not so?

The dop is mounted so high in the table adapter because it will NOT push any further into it!
There is a set screw on the side to lock the dop in place, but I'm thinking to myself "how the heck would I ever need to use it", as it is already so tight in there!

I took a screwdriver and a rubber mallot and tried to separate the gap in the block, so that the dop would more easily slide into the hole in the adapter, but it just will not budge, and i don't like taking hammers to things!

I managed to pound the dop through the adapter with the rubber mallot a few times, but it did not loosen up, that sux!

As for the spring, what it does is keep the whole thing tight and in place, the gear index must be pulled back slightly to change gear positions because that spring is holding it in place. I looked to see if there was a way to shorten the whole quill, there does not appear to be unfortunately.

I'm sure this device seems crude and sloppy compared to some of the faceting units I've seen out there, but like I said, the seller of these things says that they use these in the gem cutting houses in China because they are cheap, and she said they turn out some pretty decent gems with this unit, just alot more manual effort.

The one thing it IS lacking, and I'm guessing it needs this, is the ability to lock the degrees in place, so that it will not go any further when polishing the stone, and will only go down in the cutting as far as the degrees are set. I've remedied this by obtaining a small clamp that fits on the protractor, that will not allow the degree indicating pointer arm to go down any further than what it is set at. I can lock it at 45 degrees for example, and the quill will not polish down further than 45 degrees until I remove the clamp. Again, crude, but better than nothing!

;)


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:30 am 
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Time for a picture or two. :)

This one is my machine set up to cut or polish a girdle. The height adjustment collar supports the faceting head, and the mast is adjusted to an appropriate distance from the lap. The base is about 2 inches below the lap surface.
Image

Here it is again, with the table tool ready to cut or polish a table. The normal faceting head is not in use, and the height adjustment collar is irrelevant. It also fixes that pesky mast height problem.
Image

Notice that my quill is quite a bit shorter than yours, which is irrelevant in my case, but almost certainly explains why your table tool is too tall. For normal faceting, you should be OK, but for the table, I would recommend that you make a table tool similar to mine. A block of aluminum with two parallel holes drilled in it will do just fine. Mine is cast iron, and came with the faceting machine. If you make yours of aluminum or brass, you may want it thicker for rigidity.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:53 am 
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NovaScotiaCreations wrote:
I am assuming that you had no choice about the height, as you had to mount it on the predetermined factory made slot on your preexisting lap? Or, did you have to make your own mount like I did?

You are a braver man than I, Chris! I got my machine as you see it in the previous posts, already mostly assembled. All I had to do was mount the mast in the indicated slot and start trying to figure out how to work the dang thing. :)
NovaScotiaCreations wrote:
Are you working at the top of the mast for cutting everything from 45 - 0 degrees then? If you can cut at 90 degrees, totally flat, then I'm assuming that from 0 - 45 degrees, you must be raised way up to the top of the mast like in my pictures.

No, my faceting head doesn't travel that high, even at extreme angles. On the other hand, my quill is a good bit shorter than yours. Even so, a 3/4 inch rod of steel is pretty rigid, so it should not be too big a problem for you.
NovaScotiaCreations wrote:
All of my brass dops have a little round bar sticking out of the side of it, which serves to lock the dop into place in the collet. If you unscrew the end, and look at the jaws that grab the dop, (at least in mine) there is one of the spaces between the teeth of the jaw that has a small groove cut in it, and that is where that little stop sticking outta the dop fits into, thus preventing the dop from spinning during use, however, I notice that up at the gear, there is a set screw that holds the whole quill and gear together, and if that is not tightened, it will come loose, and the whole quill can then turn freely, which of course is not good.

You have indexed dops, which will prevent your dop from rotating in the collet. That is a Good Thing. If you make a custom table tool, you will probably have to cut a groove in the smaller hole to accommodate the index. A nuisance, but not impossible if you have access to a drill press or milling machine.

When you first decide on an index gear, just tighten that screw down good to hold the index gear on firmly. I have not had any trouble with it coming loose, but a lock washer can provide insurance. As you are cutting, just press the quill up an rotate the whole quill assembly until you get to the index number you want, then let the spring pull the whole thing back into place. That part works quite well.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:03 am 
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TheGemDr wrote:
What is that spring behind your quill for? It looks like it takes up a lot of valuable room.
Who said that girdles have to be at 90 degrees?
Tony.


The spring maintains tension against the index gear at the other end of the quill. To change indexes, you push the quill toward the index gear, rotate to the new position, then release it. The spring holds the index gear against a tooth that maintains the index angle. In Chris's case, I agree that the whole thing is almost twice as long as it needs to be.

As for girdles being 90 degrees, I'm pretty sure I haven't ever cut one of those, except by mistake. I'm betting I have a random selection between around 88 and 93 degrees, roughly.

When "leveling the girdle" I'm just trying to find where the panty lines will not be too unsightly.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:22 am 
gemsevermore wrote:
TheGemDr wrote:
What is that spring behind your quill for? It looks like it takes up a lot of valuable room.
Who said that girdles have to be at 90 degrees?
Tony.


The spring maintains tension against the index gear at the other end of the quill. To change indexes, you push the quill toward the index gear, rotate to the new position, then release it. The spring holds the index gear against a tooth that maintains the index angle. In Chris's case, I agree that the whole thing is almost twice as long as it needs to be.

As for girdles being 90 degrees, I'm pretty sure I haven't ever cut one of those, except by mistake. I'm betting I have a random selection between around 88 and 93 degrees, roughly.

When "leveling the girdle" I'm just trying to find where the panty lines will not be too unsightly.


Pantylines? Wait a second, am I posting in the corset thread again?
LOL

Thanks for all that useful info about this little gem of a device.

I'm not "braver", just broker...lol. I know when I get serious about faceting that I will invest in a better system, but for now, this is what I have, and was able at the time to invest in, so since I made that commitment, I'm gonna have to follow through with it for the time being.

So let me ask you, will shortening the quill help with this whole issue? I think it is possible actually.

Do you have the EXACT faceting device that I have? I thought you said you did in a former post.

On the side of the shaft of the quill, the brass sleeve part, there is a set screw, when released will allow the steel shaft of the quill to detach from the brass part. This would also allow the spring to be slid off the steel shaft.

I was thinking that if I were to cut off a piece of that steel shaft, maybe an inch or so, and shorten that spring by half, I could drill a new hole in the side of the steel shaft, and that set screw would then lock the shortened steel shaft into the brass sleeve, and the index gear would still be able to be held into place by the spring, there just would not be as much travel when pushing the whole thing back to change gear indexes, it would probably at least cut that travel in half, and shorten the length of the thing by an inch at least I think.

The question is, would that substantially improve things?? I know the protractor reading would change, but that is ok, because currently, the brass plate with the protractor angle numbers written on it is not mounted.

I bought this at a slightly cheaper price because that protractor plate was bent, and all I had to do was take it off, and hammer it flat again.
When I remount it, I plan on aligning it properly, and precisely measuring the angle with a good protractor, and ensuring that the thing is bang on the angle when it gets remounted.

I also planned on adding a very fine point indicator pointing needle to point at the protractor with more precision, as that badly cut and polished piece of brass that "kinda" points at the angle numbers is not that accurate! It would not be hard to glue one on to the existing brass pointer that barely even comes to a point.

They warned me that this was not a particularly "precise" device when I bought it, but also said it "was" possible to easily make decent gem cuts with it once you got the hang of it. I already planned on modifying it to be more precise before buying it, I just didn't think there would be the weird mounting issue that there is!

The only issue with that "index" on the dops is that it is also on the table index.

This means that I have to undo that screw at the gear index, and with the table adapter installed in the collet, align the table adapter by rotating the now loose shaft until it is completely flat while locked into place by that index pin, know what I mean?

Once the table adapter is sitting flush with a flat surface, I then have tightened the screw at the end of the shaft at the index gear, and now, it is all aligned properly, but it seems odd that I had to do that! When I first plugged in the table adapter and set the quill in the holder, I noticed that it was pointing up in the air to the left, instead of laying flush to the cutting surface of the disk...lol.

When I really work at pushing the dop deep into that table tool, and only have about 4mm of it protruding out of the bottom of the table tool, it's not so bad, but it is still working at the top of the mast, but at least it "fits" that way, and is within the range of the mast height, whereas before, the mast was not even tall enough.

I'm thinking if I fine tune all these space allowances, and tighten up everything, taking a half inch of here and there, eventually things might fall in line and fit, so that I can mount this thing at one set height, and be able to cut the girdle at 90 degrees, AND use the table adapter that I have, although building a new simple one like what you have seems fairly easy actually.


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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 4:32 am 
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Still so many questions! First, all you should need to do to get the table tool vertical is push the quill upward as if you were adjusting the index, and rotate the whole thing until the dop is vertical. The index may not end up on 0/96, but do you really care about that?

There should also be a little adjustment at the top of the quill next to the index gear with a set screw. This is a "cheater" which will allow you to make fine adjustments between index positions to get facets, or the table tool, perfectly aligned.

Yes, I did say our machines were identical, but on closer inspection, they are merely frighteningly similar. On mine, the quill has a single steel rod with a screw hole in one end where the index gear fits, and ending in a collet on the other end where the dop goes. There would be no way to shorten my quill without giving up and making a new one.

Your machine, however, has a steel rod with the screw hole in one end for the index gear, but ending in a solid shaft where the brass collet attaches with a set screw. I see no reason why you could not cut the solid end off as short as you are comfortable with, as long as there is enough shaft left to allow a couple of millimeters travel for adjusting index positions, and to seat the set screw in the collet. It might even be possible to loosen the set screw and shove the brass sleeve farther onto the shaft, achieving the same purpose! I would probably avoid shortening the spring unless it is really necessary. Some extra tension would probably not hurt anything, except maybe whoever is in the way when you take the index gear off.

Shortening the quill shaft will have NO effect on the protractor reading. That brass pointer will not be affected, and the angle will still be the angle. No worries there. There should be a set screw holding the brass pointer on the quill assembly. Take it out, file it to a point, put it back, adjust it, tighten it, and SUPERGLUE IT! Stupid thing loosened on its own due to vibration and ruined a very nice garnet I was working on.

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 Post subject: Re: New to faceting, need help mounting mast!
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:10 pm 
gemsevermore wrote:

There should be a set screw holding the brass pointer on the quill assembly. Take it out, file it to a point, put it back, adjust it, tighten it, and SUPERGLUE IT! Stupid thing loosened on its own due to vibration and ruined a very nice garnet I was working on.


Hi there, I've posted some pictures to show you exactly what my faceting device looks like, including the differences I think yours and mine have, one thing for sure is the brass pointer, it is ONE piece, and does not have a set screw to remove it, so you cannot adjust it or anything. I just planned on filing it down, and replacing it with a more precise one that I will probably mount by means of drilling 2 holes and using self threading metal screws to mount the new one on top of the existing brass piece that is there now. As it is, it's kinda useless isn't it?

I've also taken the quill apart so you can see how it fits together, and how I plan on shortening it, IF it will really help things out.

so, WILL it for sure make this device more versatile for faceting if I shorten this quill to a much shorter length?

From my reasoning, I'm guessing that it will reduce the amount of travel needed on the mount, meaning the distance to and from the polishing wheel, so if the quill is shorter, than I won't have to pull it back so far to cut a 90 degree girdle cut then?

So if I shorten the quill, it will be better for the girdle cutting, but what about the rest of the cuts? Will there ever be a situation where i suddenly realize by shortening the quill that I now cannot reach something that I needed to, that I wouldn't have known about until I started to learn faceting?

Again, if I were well immersed in the art of faceting already, I would know my goals in modifying or designing a piece of equipment, but NOT knowing is the part that I'm fearful of, I would hate to modify something only to find out later on that I should not have done that, as I've ruined it for something else that I could no longer do.

If I REALLY wanted to shorten the quill, it is actually easily possible, all I need to do is cut a piece off the brass sleeve, then cut a piece off the end of the steel shaft, and then simply drill a new hole for the set screw to fit into on the steel shaft, and voila, a shorter quill that would not effect the way the gear index functions at all, as the spring would still be present and all would be the same, just shorter.

but again, I wouldn't want to do that serious of a chop job on this device until I know for SURE that I'm not totally screwing it up. I get nervous taking large pieces off of a precision instrument, especially when I don't know the end result of my actions, which I'm relying on those here reading this to guide me, and ensure I don't do the wrong thing to this quill....lol

Is there ANY reason why shortening this quill might limit my ability to use it for anything that I cannot foresee in a gem cutting situation, or mess it up in some way that I do not know about?

I can't see any reason mechanically why shortening it would be a problem, just the "use" of it later might be effected in some way I am not aware of.

Here are the pictures of my device, did you get yours from Sierra gems where I purchased mine from on ebay? The below link is for a current auction for this device, from the people where I purchased mine from, I hope it's ok to post it here:

If you search for "faceting machine" in ebay, you will always see their auctions for these there, here is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Faceting-Machine-Mast-Yoke-and-Quill-NEW-/180526232573?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0833b3fd

Their seller ID is sierragems1

Here are the pics:

Below, showing the pointer all one piece assembly:
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Below, showing where I would cut to achieve a shorter quill approximately:
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The whole quill as it came to me:
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The set screw below:
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Above and below, the locking slot to lock the dop stick in place:
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Below, a closer up image of the brass pointer:
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Below, the brass sleeve and steel shaft disassembled when set screw removed:
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Below, a closeup of the set screw and holes:
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Below, me holding the quill at approximately how short I could make it if I cut the brass sleeve, does this look short enough to help out the situation substantially?
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Below, a closeup of the "cradle" slots where the quill rests and pivots on, I was thinking about drilling 2 small holes onto the top of each, and mounting a small piece of metal to lock them in place on both sides via screws, would that help it to not "pop" out while using it?:
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Below is the stop device clamp I rigged up to ensure the angle can be set on a certain degree and left there, to get the EXACT degree cut each time, until I want to move it, is this a good idea to use this? I don't know any other way to keep me from cutting too far down if left to the naked eye to make sure it doesn't:


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