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To be or not to be included?
Leave Inclusions. Finish the Stone. Decide afterwards. Earn Experience. 38%  38%  [ 3 ]
Remove them now, they will be very obvious or pop out just before you finish the stone. 63%  63%  [ 5 ]
Read suggestion below on learning how to gauge their true size. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 8
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 Post subject: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:06 am 
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Ok so I know this is a heated topic of which only experience answers questions. But any help will be much appreciated.

This is my first Portuguese cut, using a small 8ct Garnet(pyralspite possibly malaia) with a pronounce color shift from light beige to reddish purple . As you can see below i have done rough cutting to establish shape and learn the sequence of facets/tiers and looking likely to end up as 2.12ct finish stone.

Now, right on one of the sides, right next to the girdle there are these 2 "inclusions" that can't say I have seen before. Or maybe I have encounter these on another garnet from Tanzania(color changer too), much smaller ones but similar in that once the facet goes through it, they show an outline around them and can easily pop out
during polishing and leave hole behind :evil: .
Anyway, these ones look like elongated bubbles of a different material as the rest of the garnet with some stuff inside of them I can't make up what it is. Don't think this is synthetic is it? I see a couple of other inclusions in there of small dark and transparent crystals isolated and scattered throughout the stone that won't be an issue.

The question in hand is, are these worthy of removing? I want a nice stone, not for selling, but one that is not distracted by obvious inclusions. I just dont' have the experience of knowing if they will be too obvious based on their placement. They sem to be right against the girdle, not affecting the pavillion facets just the girdle a little bit but can't tell how deep they go. Am guessing that I will have to remove about 1mm of the girdle (currently at 5.9mm) which would drop the overall weight to 1.2ct :( Refraction is so annoying, I just can't tell how big they actually are, even after polishing a few facets around them and using cedar's oil to help.

The inclusions look huge in these bad photos taken from my phone so just keep in mind that they are not these obvious to the naked eye, was just trying to show them as pronounced as i could. Also, on the second photo you can see to the right of the inclusions what looks like a oval chipped area. This was left by a third bubble just like these two that was sitting where the crown will be, so I took exacto knife, budge it and it popped right out. The crown would have overcut that one anyway.

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cheers !


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:32 pm 
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Location: San Marcos, CA
I voted remove. I feel they appear to be exactly where the girdle will end up and very close to the surface and as the girdle gets thinner, possibly going to have a very big chance of chipping.
Now if they are deep enough and that not going to reach surface, leave them hide with a prong when and if set in a mounting.

By your carat weight estimation what is this a 7.5 to 8.5mm Portuguese cut. Quite small for this design, very very small facets, but your material is light so it should pop and will not really notice these inclusions if left.

Good luck.

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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:02 am 
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I'd remove them.


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:52 pm 
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my opinion, remove it. on 90 degrees. sacrifice the diameter of the stone a bit.
,Its on the edge,but I think you would also need this extra mm thickness to finish the crown,
so you won't have to cut it too shallow.


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:55 pm 
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Remove them.

Change your plan from a round to an oval to save weight.


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:33 pm 
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Oh noes! Votes were the other way around yesterday and I continued the stone without getting rid of them. It is currently in the transfer jig as the pavillion was done late last night :(
I am afraid you are all most likely right, perhaps then i will finish it and post it here so you can say " we told you so! "
Oh and it is already an oval, and the inclusions are on the shorter dimension so a lot of weight loss if I remove them, and also the crown can be done with the current height, so no need to make it shorter based on calculations with GCS program.

Will report back.


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:09 pm 
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Ok so, I come back with some good and bad news.
Bad news, those of you that said "removed the inclusion" were probably right. After finishing the pavillion and transfering the stone I could see clearly down the table now and the 2 bubbly inclusions were not only very visible but going deeper into the center of the stone. But removing them would mean removing a lot of the stone too, leaving the final weight to probably just over or under a carat. Besides i was proud of the pavillion polish and symmetry so kept going with the plan to finish the stone.

Good news is I am happy with the stone as is, the inclusion as big as it is, its actually well hidden by both its type of inclusion (semi transparent) and the design which is quite sparkly. This is the first inclusion I left in a stone that doesn't make me regret it. Don't think the inclusions will be an issue during setting it either, which will also further hide them. Also just as an aside, I love these garnets, they are so dispersiony, and they color shift as well.

Here is a not so well shot gif. Stone lit with fluorescent under semi flat lighting. Even so there are some dispersion hits here and here. If seen under sunlight or any type of point/sharp lighting the dispersion goes crazy, and the color under warmer lights turns into a reddish raspberry hue. Very visible Saturated secondary and tertiary highlights are wonderful too, not very visible on these photos thought sadly.


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And here is a look at the inclusion that started this whole thread. Stone also has a couple of these round circles of dark and very reflective material, as pointed in the arrow. Bubbly inclusion is clearly seen in these photos but had to light it just right to make it this visible.
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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2020 3:12 pm 
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It is still a nice stone. Impressive faceting. 8)


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 Post subject: Re: To keep or to kill them Inclusions?
PostPosted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 6:40 pm 
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Thank you Barbra for the nice comment.
I finally feel like am getting a hold of this black-magic aka faceting. Feeling more confident to start using higher quality rough.

cheers!


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