Square

More From Faceting Demonstrations

Pictured below are a few more stones started at a local club show as part of a faceting demonstration, and then eventually finished at home later.  The previous set was from the show by the club to our north, so these are from the show put on by the club to the south.

The first is a 9.81 cts. lemon citrine that is 12.4 mm. across.

Next is a 6.12 cts. prasiolite quartz 11.6 mm. round.  For this one, the crown was shaped into a dome before a few flat facets were placed on it.

And of course, I had to include hexagons.  This lemon quartz gem is 12.2 mm. wide and weighs 7.16 cts.

This is another citrine at the other end of the color range. It is 2.39 cts. and 8.6 mm. across.

All of these gems have concave facets on the pavilion so really sparkle.  And they are all from rough material obtained in February during my Tucson adventures.

 

Beginning Attempt with the Fantasy tools

After a number of failed exercises trying to get up to speed with the V-groove tools that came with the ULTRA TEC Faceting fantasy machine, this stone was a step in the right direction.

The grooves were more curves rather than straight sided and my attempts to polish were only partially successful.

The stone is smoky quartz, 6.68 carats, 11.4 mm across

 

Yet Another Ametrine

This 7.44 carat, 11.5 mm. gem is the last of my ametrine parcel purchased from Steve Ulatowski / New Era Gems last February in Tucson.

It was another experiment to see if the gold / purple color break could show up and still have a stone that sparkles and glows.

The camera shows the color variation better than it appears to the eye.

Another Ametrine

Here is a 5.97 carat ametrine which measures 10.4 mm. across. In an experiment to see if the two colors would show rather than mix, I tried using concave facets on two sides of the pavilion to make it really bright, and using steep angles on the other two sides (similar to a method used for closed C axis tourmalines.)

It seemed to work somewhat. As usual, the camera showed the difference more than it seemed to me. And also added a bit an impressionist painting look to the stone.

Uruguay Citrine

Another item that was obtained during 2018 Tucson, this 5.26 carat dark orange citrine is material from Uruguay. The pavilion features a row of concave facets to give it an extra glow. The stone is 9.8 mm wide. And how did that piece of lint get by during the photo session?