Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 12:51 am
Valued Contributor
Joined: Fri Dec 25, 2015 8:31 pm Posts: 276
Decided to fade that guerrero topaz I cut on a window sill in october, here's the results. Looks like the pleochroism has been severely reduced, in addition to the lightening. No orange left, now...
It's unfortunate but common for them. You'd really need to put it in direct, unfiltered sunlight to be sure. In my experience with the few parcels I've handled the ones that wanted to fade faded nearly to their final color within a few days in direct summer sunlight, and seemed to be totally done within a month. What's remarkable about them is that even the ones that fade almost never faded to nothing. The lighter peaches are still nice gems, even if they don't have the same intensity of color.
Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:00 am
Valued Contributor
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:08 pm Posts: 381 Location: Lyon, France
Heres a fun one we did this week. All sapphires, from start to finish, with final yields at the bottom. Some big stones in there but lots of inclusions to work around as well.
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Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 4:03 pm
Gold Member
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:58 pm Posts: 1424 Location: San Marcos, CA
Justin, Outside of just being fun, what was the ultimate goal? None of the rough, yields much in a decent stone, or at least where you chose to end the cutting. All still very included, so would have a smaller yield returned a more valued stone? The first stone appears to have resulted in a somewhat better return visibly, although it appears cloudy and maybe just the photo. Were these student cuts practicing rough to cut gems to evaluate yield returns.
Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 4:21 am
Valued Contributor
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:08 pm Posts: 381 Location: Lyon, France
No these are customers stones sent to one of our local Gemcutting factories. Material was pretty included and ended up still included but tolerable. We always cut conservatively because recutting is always an option and on such big sapphires it’s not always clear in communicating with the customer whether it would be better cleaner or better bigger. This time, customer chose bigger with options to recut once they’ve seen them in hand. Some of the pieces have inclusions directly in the center so removing would be detrimental. As for more value cleaner vs more value smaller, I really have no idea. Selling is something I rarely do so I always let the customer make the decisions that involve finances. They know their customers better than us.
That being said, this was my most liked social media post of all time. People really seemed to like seeing the stages of cutting and lots of people appreciated seeing a realistic yield percentage reported.
Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2024 9:07 pm
Active Member
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2010 1:23 pm Posts: 99 Location: San Luis Obispo County, CA
Last Stones Before Tucson 2024
Of course, I didn’t get nearly as many stones cut in the past year as I had hoped. Life is like that. But I did make progress including some items that had been waiting for years. The last two stones cut were aquamarine recut projects.
The first of these is a stone I picked up in Tucson a few years ago from a dealer who was running a retirement sale. The stone had a serious chip in the upper left corner (bit hard to see) and was windowed. But the price was fine if it was considered rough or a preform.
It started out as 13.30 carats. The pavilion angle was about 30 degrees — well below the critical angle for beryl (39.5) and recommended angle for beryl. After recutting it weighed 9.29 carats and measured 18.0 x 9.9 x 7.2 mm. A pattern of concave facets were used on the pavilion so it has a much more interesting look than a vanilla emerald cut.
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The second stone is one that sat in the drawer for over three decades. Originally it was a large triangular preform. I had been faceting for a few years at that point, but did not have that much experience working on preforms. I ended up following the depth of the preform too far resulting with too little material left for the crown. The table was huge and the stone looked dumb.
So finally I got the courage to rework the stone. The recut lost a couple mm. in the width and quite a bit of weight as a result. The end result is still a big stone — 25.78 carats and 19.4 mm. across
Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2024 11:58 pm
Valued Contributor
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:15 am Posts: 352 Location: Cary, NC
Mary,
Absolutely stunning results. The concave additions make both of these stones pop. Well done and post more when you get a chance. Have fun in Tuscon and it would be great to see a post on anything interesting you see as I (and others I assume), will not be able to make it.
_________________ Bob Hodges
Faceter: When turned into a zombie, they stumble around crying "roooouuuuggghhhh"
Post subject: Re: Before and After – Post YOUR Transformation Pics
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2024 7:08 pm
Active Member
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2010 1:23 pm Posts: 99 Location: San Luis Obispo County, CA
Thanks you.
And I will try to remember to take photos of the gems, jewelry, minerals and so forth. In the past few visits I made to Tucson I found when I got home that I had lots of pictures of cactus, critters and scenery and not much with details of what was at the shows.
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