Let's post links and descriptions of our favorite resources and vendors.

Rough and Synthetics

• Joe Henley Rough - Natural and Synthetics (US)
• Turtle's Hoard - Synthetics (US)
• Tom's Box of Rocks - Synthetics (US)
• Western Gem - Natural (US)
• Gems of East Africa - Natural (EU)

Lapidary Supplies

• Lightning Laps - Laps, Polishes and Tools

Designs

• facetdiagrams.org
• The Gemology Project

Ultratec

• Adjust swing alignment on platen - Does your stone cut deeper on the outside vs inside of the lap? This will help fix that.

So, now that I'm cutting again, I decided to dig through my rough and see what I could do with a piece of fire opal. The piece didn't have a lot of fire, but I wanted to have a go at it.

Overall everything went great, good solid cut, meet points and polish. Worked to take it off the dop an an unknown flaw clipped off one edge of the stone. 😱 😭

Needless to say that really pissed me off.

It's been a heck of a year, and I'm finally cutting again... first stone in over a year... this came out great!

Next up is a fire opal!

This stone was cut by my son using his own design. YAG is a man made crystal used in lasers. Most YAG that cutters get comes from rejected crystal that didn't meet specs.

None of these pictures do it justice as it had almost as much fire as my wife's engagement ring.

I decided to try faceting an x-cube! X-cubes are basically fancy glass, so the material itself has little value, but the crazy colors they throw around when faceted really make them a fun material to experiment with.

For those curious, I oriented the X on my girdle, at 96 and 48.

Here is the link to the still photo

And here's a photo of the original material

Material: x-cube (dichroic glass) Measurements: 5.990 ct, 12.47 mm x 12.41 mm Design: Heart of Nines by Robert Strickland

Been super busy with life, but finally got back to cutting. This is the second of four chrome diopside stones I'm cutting.

Design is Star Cut by Justin K Prim, but adjusted for the absurdly high RI this stone has. Pretty chuffed with how this came out!

Okay not really! It's just nanosital, which is a synthetic material very similar to glass. Gemstones always look alarmingly tasty, but this one was so reminiscent of a green Jolly Rancher when I polished it that I just had to give it an appropriate staging.

Design is "Green Lion" by Scott Laborie - several other faceters had been talking about this design as one of their favorites and after cutting it, I can see why! Strongly recommended by me now as well :) 24.0 cts, 19.6 x 12.7 mm

(Only one Jolly Rancher was harmed in the making of this photo op)

Spinny video can be found here, if you want to see it in sparkly action (and a nice proportionate girdle): https://pxlmo.com/p/meggied90/675122420686447993

I saw another faceter experimenting with frosting the edges between facets and the result was so intriguing I decided to copy the idea. It created such a cool snowflake effect in this aquamarine!

I finally have a gem that is showcased better as a still photo than a video. 🤯

5.94 cts, 10.78mm

Design (unfrosted) is Sparkle Six by Wayne Emery (can be found on the USFG website)

Just finished faceting this monster over the weekend. This thing was so dang easy to polish it felt a little suspicious if I am being perfectly honest. Overall I am extremely happy with my results. Even the girdle!

12.3 cts, 12.4mm, design is Jumper by Arya Akhavan. The rough was acquired from Tom's Box of Rocks.

Tiny orange zircon. I cut this once and was super unhappy because only a few facets would take a polish. Bought more lightning laps to give me more prepolish steps, and suddenly everything is happy. Design is Square Princess Cut by Justin K. Prim

I just tried cutting moissanite for the first time and goodness gracious, it took forever at the prepolish and polish steps, I assume because of the mohs hardness. After spending ungodly hours on that polish I will never again complain about polishing quartz.

I know, I know - FAT GIRDLE. It doesn't look so comically big on the dop, I swear my camera adds 0.1 mm!

7.98 mm, 2.84 cts, design is Mind Games by Arya Akhavan

I took on a design way beyond my skill level just to see how I would fare. I didn't leave quite enough material for my crown so please ignore the small divot in the center of the table, as well as the occasional missed meetpoint. Learning experiences abound!

While taking my video I notice my table polish has an annoying streak across it at just the exact right angle of light. I polished the hell out of that table using my BATT lap and 60k Pandimonium - so how did I accidentally create this streaking? Did the lap need more lubricant maybe? Or not enough 60k? Or too much...? Argh!

Design is Superpear 96 by Robert Long & Norm Steele

12 x 9.3 mm, 7.7 cts

Synthetic corundum (sapphire)

Design is Fusion Seven Oval 1.43. Got some finer grit lightning laps and now I'm getting a finish I really like on tourmalines.

Unfortunately this stone has a fracture and inclusion right at the cutlet.

Nothing I could do, so decided to finish the stone and hope it held together. Here is another view of the pavilion.

I like the color, too bad the light return wasn’t what I was looking for.

This is one of the most perfect cuts I've managed. The meet points are all as perfect as I could get, as well as the polish. I chose a more standard round cut than what my son designed as I wanted to lighten the stone more due to the overall color saturation of the material.

I'm going to cut a second calibrated to match, and get them set for my wife.

Design is Emerald Cut by Justin K Prim. Probably a bit too much colour mixing on the ends of the stone, but I'm happy with the effect

My son has really started to get into faceting. He bought a boule of hydrothermal emerald(man made) as he wanted to cut a design he made specific to emerald.

He sliced the emerald in half and gave me one half while he cut his up into the sizes he was going to facet.

I was mostly hands off with this and only really helped out when his stone popped off the dop. He did a great job!

This is one of two stones I’m cutting from a piece of morganite. This stone was started almost a month ago, and sat on the dop for weeks after I cut part of the crown and found an inclusion of bubbles that intersected a set of facets on one side looking like a fracture.

The perfectionist in me was pissed and frustrated and I walked away from the stone leaving it on the machine. I was forced to finish the stone thanks to my son who was planning on cutting a hydrothermal emerald. So I finished the stone, and you can’t even see the flaw without a loop.

I’m such an idiot and am so thankful that my son gave me a swift kick in the ass.

Simple little stone to start off my year. Design is Asscher-Cut by Justin K Prim.