I love it! I loved the little animation in the beginning! Great job explaining how faceting works! I am a beginning faceter and I was gifted a really old MDR so I’ve been watching your videos to learn. Please keep making these videos, and great work!
I assume you are talking about how to measure the width of the girdle? I started out with a wire gage that reads in mm. But many cutters have devised other tools...some use mechanical pencil lead, for example to cut a .2mm girdle, line up a .2mm piece of mechanical pencil lead along your stone and you can tell if you are there. There are many other methods. But now I use a 10x loupe which has a scale in mm that you can see in the loupe...the box mine came in says "LED Scale Loupe" and I found it on Amazon...there is a scale, but also there are little balls of different sizes like .2mm, .3mm, .5mm ect. I just line the ball up with the girdle...but again, there are many options there as every cutter seems to have found their own method.
For the pavilion I use a 'v' shaped dop. It is not keyed. The pavilion or bottom half of an emerald or rectangle shape has a long 'keel' instead of a point, so a round dop won't work.
Thank you for answering. I should have pointed out that I meant the end of the dop stick that goes in to the quill. I'm on my way to cutting my first stone, and my quill don't have a groove for the dop stick to fit in. When you had the dop stick out I thought it was a completely round one.
As a beginner, I so appreciate this video and the precision it covers. It does raise a question, though: if you want the width of the finished gemstone to be 8mm, how much extra do you leave at the different grit levels to be cut away at the next? Example: when using 600, would you cut it down to 8.1mm, knowing the rest of the steps would remove the 0.1mm?
Great question! From trial and error, I leave about .1 on my dial indicator between the 1200 grit (or in my case the 12M lap) and the 3K lap...for the polish, I don't move the facet much, if at all.
Can you give me an exact or rough estimate on how much it would cost to cut this exact stone (price to cut the rough stone) and the value of the finished product?
No that is not true that lab grown stuff lacks flaws. Lab grown Emerald rough comes in various grades and the best grade (cleanest and most expensive) still has occasional fractures but is generally eye clean.
Hi, great video. But could you please explain your actions in more details. It just happened that I had read a book that is called Faceting made easy by Trevor Hannam. Over there he explains the same design in details and after watching your video it seems to me that your explanation is very vague. I mean if I could have watched only your video and do the cutting I would have landed up with nothing.
Great video. I am always in favor of those who wish to purchase a synthetic stone provided all rules of disclosure have been followed. I advise my clients that, for example, a synthetic emerald is NOT a simulant or an imitation stone. It is every bit as real as a natural stone except that the synthetic stone is NOT natural.
Thank you for the education and the step by step process. Your video is better than previous ones however, the close up shots are still out of focus and take away from the overall quality.
Thank you very much Don. I appreciate constructive criticism and advice. I have been paying extra attention to my camera work. Wish I had a third hand sometimes. I upgraded my video equipment, and believe I have improved on my camera work…but I have to work through some older clips on videos before the newest videos will start showing better results (I am trying).
I have seen hundreds of faceting videos (even though I've only cut one stone at my lapidary club). This video is, by far, the best and most detailed I've seen to date. Please continue to explain the finer points of faceting to help us newbies learn this amazing art. I've been saving my money from a part-time job to purchase an Ultra Tec and only need another $2,000 to go.
We're you being facetious when you said " Emerald, The inexpensive gemstone"? Diamonds have artificial value due to.debeers convincing women that they are valuable. They are actually so common that, in reality, their value is worthless. Rubies are valuable but have to be the right color... pigeons blood being best. Emeralds are by far the most valuable gems when cut and the hardest to cut into a gem of priceless value as emeralds are never flawless and have a huge range of color. In fact, a clear, perfect emerald is a good sign it's fake.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I respect them all. You seem to have a strong opinion about emerald....and diamonds .... and rubies. You are certainly welcome to your opinion and I'm not here to debate if diamonds are in reality worthless or if emeralds are bay far the most valuable gems. As to being 'facetious'... I really don't know if I was being facetious or not, as I had to google the meaning to be sure I understood what you were asking....I guess I'll leave it up to you to decide.
