Gem Cutting Tutorial: Beginner Pear Aquamarine 

I bet your gemstone turned out great!

I haven't cut with the Facetron before, but understand it is one of the best machines out there. With the Ultra Tec, you can easily override the 'set' position of the keyed dop, not an issue. Not sure about Facetron. Glad your pear turned out...pear shapes are not easy!

Let me know how it turns out!

You are very welcome.

Jon "gearloose" Rolfe sold the rights to the Batt Laps to Ultra Tec. Ultra Tec is, or will be manufacturing the Batt Laps. Jon wants to focus on cutting. But his laps are available. What about that 'budget' gem cutting machine you purchased on Ebay? Is that a part of the reason you have stopped cutting? The reason I am asking is because the general concensus from about every gem cutter out there is that new cutters who buy the budget machines on Ebay end up giving up gem cutting because these cheap machines do not work. What is your advice regarding these machines?

@@BOPIESDiamondsFineJewelry actually the machine works great. There is a few issues. The main one is only comes with one disc for cutting. The main thing I don’t like is the gears #s are tiny and hard to see. So takes forever if your going off a diagram. The main reason I quit Faceting is just not having the right laps. I spent like 4 or 5 hours on one stone and still has tiny scratches. I been cabbing a lot of opals lately. When I can buy a batt lap or similar I will try again. Thanks for asking. Have a good one. 😀

I polish the girdle as a matter of personal preference. From talking with other cutters, a very large percentage do not polish the girdle (maybe as much as 50%...but I have never conducted an official poll). Reasons given to not polish the girdle, is that it is very narrow, and not normally seen when the stone is mounted. The girdle is almost always less than .5mm wide (although some cutters determine girdle width as a percentage of the overall width of the gemstone, in which case, a large stone may have a girdle wider than 0.5mm)...and often as narrow as .2mm (depending entirely on the preference of the cutter). I would say 'to polish or not to polish' the girdle is strictly a matter of cutter preference...unless you are entering a gem cutting competition, and then you need to follow the cutting instructions dictated for the competition, which will tell you what to do with the girdle...how wide, polished or not, and sometimes will even call for a 'continuous' girdle and not a faceted girdle at all. Hope this explanation helps.

@@mikesackos2208 thank you a lot...