Cutting the stone :
Topaz, Mt Surprise, O'Briens Creek, Trouble With Tribble, #42

What I wanted to do here was to give you an idea of how a stone gets cut.

The stone starts off in the "rough" and is attached to a short brass rod called a "dop" using hot wax. The dop is inserted into the "quill" which can be rotated in increments.

The quill can be set at certain angles as determined by the design being cut and in some of the photos you can see the digital angle read out. Precision cutting gems, ie. faceting, is all about correct and accurate angles.

I generally start out cutting the bottom of the gemstone, which is called the "pavilion". The "girdle" comes next which is the middle band around the gemstone. After this, the stone is then "transferred" onto a second dop and the cutting of the top half, the "crown", is done. Finally the "table" which is the top surface of the gem is cut.

To give you an idea of the number of facets on a gemstone, a standard round brilliant has 89 facets. Now, when we cut a stone we are actually grinding it on "laps". These laps have diamond grit impregnated into them and come in different grades, like sandpaper. A typical cutting sequence would be to start with 100 grit (very rough) --> 600 grit --> 1200 grit (fine) --> 3000 pre-polish --> 50,000 polish. This means that we have to touch each facet 5 times which means we are in effect cutting 445 facets!!! And you can get designs that have 150+ facets, so think about that! Cutting a fine gemstones takes time and patience... that's what you're paying for.

Once completed, the finished gemstone is removed from the dop, cleaned to remove all the traces of wax and then its ready to sparkle.

The rough stone is affixed to the dop.

That's a big piece of rock!!!

Cutting the pavilion... there's a lot of grinding to be done.

grinding, grinding, grinding...

Okay, we can start to see the pavilion taking shape.

View of the pavilion with the girdle cut as well.

Side shot of the stone.

Pavilion and girdle nicely polished.

I was cutting the crown at night and took this photo with the lamp shining onto the topaz. Look at how it lit up!!!!

It positively glows!!!

I couldn't stop moving the topaz around under the light and taking photos.

Okay, getting sensible again... a view of the crown.

Side shot showing the profile of the stone with the crown polished.

Cutting the table.

Table has been polished.

Another shot of the table.

Looking good. We've finished cutting and polishing.

Just have to take the stone off the dop.

All done, straight off the dop and about to be cleaned. She certainly's a big stone!

Bespoke Gems is home to a beautiful collection of fine handcut gemstones. These lovely coloured gems have been precision custom cut from such precious and semi precious gemstones as amethyst, ametrine, aquamarine, beryl, black spinel, blue topaz, carnelian, chalcedony, chrysoberyl, chrysoprase, asscher cut citrine, garnet, lapis lazuli, peridot, rose de france amethyst, rose quartz, ruby and zoisite, sage green quartz, sapphire, smokey quartz, topaz, asscher cut tourmaline, rubellite tourmaline, zircon and many others. All gem designs have been optimized to bring out the best in the gemstone and cover a wide range of contemporary and traditional designs, such as the classic asscher cut. Bespoke Gems also has educational articles on the art of gem cutting and what to look for when buying a gem. Please enjoy and thank you for visiting. :-)

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