|
Cutting the stone : Citrine, Rainbow, #44
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 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 belt 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.
Once completed, the stone is then removed from the dop, cleaned to remove all the traces of wax and then its ready to sparkle.
This is how the gem starts out... as a rough stone |
|
|
The rough stone has been affixed to the dop using wax and we're ready to rock. (pun intended :-) |
|
|
Cutting the pavilion. |
|
|
Working on the girdle of the stone. |
|
|
Viewing the stone from the bottom... you can see the oval shape clearly now. |
|
|
The pavilion and girdle are nicely polished. |
|
|
|
|
|
About to transfer the stone onto another dop. You can see the slight colour zoning from this side angle. |
|
|
Here you can see the transfer block used to attach the stone to the second dop. |
|
|
Note how the first dop held the stone using wax and the second using an epoxy. |
|
|
Okay, we're ready to starting cutting the crown. |
|
|
In progress... |
|
|
Crown has been cut and is about to be polished. |
|
|
Time to do the table. |
|
|
All done... very nice stone! |
|
|
