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!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19200551
Took this the other day a bit before the rain moved in.
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.
Been super busy with life, but finally got back to cutting. This is the second of four chrome diopside stones I'm cutting.
Amazing and intense. One of the best I’ve ever witnessed.
Let's post links and descriptions of our favorite resources and vendors.
Rough and Synthetics
Lapidary Supplies
Designs
Ultratec
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.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11525302
My brother has self published a book about our family’s history. This book has been a work in progress by multiple family members over decades, but it’s finally done!
Below is a copy of the description from the linked website.
If you enjoy WW II history and live stories, you might like this view into the past.
———————————-
Louise and Albert is a vivid portrait of life, love, and World War II in 1945 through the letters of Louise (Glasner) Reeves and former United States Congressman and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant Colonel Albert Reeves, Jr.
As Albert dealt with his challenges in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II, Louise dealt with the rationing challenges and fears of never seeing her husband again while running a household, raising their two children and expecting their third child.
The book also chronicles the family’s efforts to battle corruption in Kansas City and Albert’s time in Congress, representing Missouri’s 5th Congressional District. The time after the war included many challenges for the U.S. and Congressman Reeves - government debt, inflation, foreign aid, food and manufacturing shortages, and lingering government corruption. Corruption, before and after the war, involved election fraud to win seats for machine party candidates. This corruption ended up tainting the Truman presidency.
Included in the book is the dramatic history of the diplomacy, combat, and engineering activities to build the Ledo Road – one of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ greatest achievements.
My brother has self published a book about our family’s history. This book has been a work in progress by multiple family members over decades, but it’s finally done!
Below is a copy of the description from the linked website.
If you enjoy WW II history and live stories, you might like this view into the past.
———————————-
Louise and Albert is a vivid portrait of life, love, and World War II in 1945 through the letters of Louise (Glasner) Reeves and former United States Congressman and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant Colonel Albert Reeves, Jr. As Albert dealt with his challenges in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II, Louise dealt with the rationing challenges and fears of never seeing her husband again while running a household, raising their two children and expecting their third child. The book also chronicles the family’s efforts to battle corruption in Kansas City and Albert’s time in Congress, representing Missouri’s 5th Congressional District. The time after the war included many challenges for the U.S. and Congressman Reeves - government debt, inflation, foreign aid, food and manufacturing shortages, and lingering government corruption. Corruption, before and after the war, involved election fraud to win seats for machine party candidates. This corruption ended up tainting the Truman presidency. Included in the book is the dramatic history of the diplomacy, combat, and engineering activities to build the Ledo Road – one of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ greatest achievements.
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.
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.
So my son, who is studying engineering, has gotten into faceting due to the math/science behind optimizing a cut. He designed this in GemCad Studio, and cut this stone this last weekend. Turned out incredible, and I wanted to share.
I’ve been looking at this large morganite rough and trying to decide how to cut this. It’s sort of in the shape of a triangular prism, but it narrows towards one end.
I was leaning towards slicing it in three and creating a matching set of trillian stones. The other alternative I’m contemplating is a matching set of square/princess cut stones optimized for this stone.
Interested if anyone has some other alternatives or opinions.
So finally got this stone done and am super happy with how it came out. A nice clean stone with great color and light return.
Only had an hour this morning to work on the stone. Pre-polish is done, and still need to do the table.
Overall I’m really happy with how this stone is turning out.
