Years ago I purchased a parcel of green beryl which included a couple of very long and narrow crystals. Short of using the trim saw to turn these into multiple pieces with more typical proportions, there wasn’t much else that could be done with these other than cutting them into elongated emerald cut shapes. Of course, that results in a boring stone. The solution to that problem was the addition of concave facets which created much more interesting optics and a gem that has gotten a lot of positive comments. (Figure 1.)
Figure 1. Green Beryl
So why not try the approach on some slightly larger stones? The original green beryl was under 5 mm. wide. I wanted to see the result in a stone that was in the range of 8 to 10 mm. wide. In searching through the rough I had on hand, I found a few pieces that met the desired width, but would end up with the length more like two times the width rather than the four times of the green beryl. At least for the initial experiments, that would have to do.
The idea was to test some variations on a theme. Take a basic long emerald cut and add concave facets to the pavilion only. The crown would be a standard step cut so the only thing being considered was the impact of the concave facets on the pavilion.
Figure 2. Rose Quartz
The first piece was a scrap of rose quartz that many years ago had been trimmed off a much larger chunk. It had been ignored as useless for a long time and I was surprised to find how well it suited the situation. For this one there would be three concave facets on one side of the pavilion — center and close to each end — and two on the other side aligned between the facets on the other side. The concave facets were created so that they closely approached the keel without actually touching it. The width of the facets was about the same as the space between them. The goal / expectation were for the actual facets reflected in other side of the pavilion. (Figure 2.)
Figure 3. Amethyst
For the second stone a piece of amethyst was selected. This one was done similarly to the rose quartz, except that in this case there were three concave facets on each side of the pavilion arranged opposite each other. (Figure 3.)
Figure 4. Citrine
Of course, for the third stone in the series, yet another piece of quartz was needed. In this case, it was a citrine. For the final stone, each side of the pavilion had five concave facets that touched each other. (Figure 4.)
I expected that one of the combinations above would clearly be better than the others. But so far, I have not been able to pick a favorite. Meanwhile, I have acquired a few pieces of rough which have a length to width ratio of 3. So some rainy day, I will get around to the next step in this series. Stay tuned.
