Pictured below is a 10.41 carat, 12.9 mm. colorless topaz that was one of the batch of stones that I cut over the past few weeks while I was getting familiar with using my new UltraTec Fantasy machine to cut concave facets.
Most of the work was done with rose quartz which is not the most exciting material. However, the price is right for the practice situations where you expect that major errors are likely. And they did happen. I learned that timing is important when bringing down the stone to the mandrel as unlike the OMF where only the mandrel is moving in and out, with the Fantasy machine, the entire tool drive moves. I was not paying attention and collision with the slash guard took off a big chunk of the pavilion in one instance. Needless to say, lesson learned.
Now I have a more colorful and varied batch dopped up and ready to go for the next phase where I start exercising some of the options of the fantasy machine which go beyond what I had with the old OMF.
I am also getting used to being back in my workroom. We moved things around for remodeling a couple years ago and somehow just never got back until a new piece of equipment provided extra motivation.
