Postings in this category are specifically for members of my apprenticeship program, and are not open to the public.
Welcome to the Tucson Show Report 2014, and our sharing of the adventure and my take on the event, the locations, the market, and more. Hope you enjoy. This year, we went even earlier than usual, and took advantage of the “quiet before the storm” that is usually the Tucson crowd. Only this year, that […]
Tucson Show Report 2014 Read More »
It’s that time of year again – to get knee-deep in rough precious stones and cutting art from every corner of the planet. To get down and swim in it. To see more crystals and sparkling stones and rough than I thought was in the world – before I first went to Tucson. Every year,
Top Ten Tucson Tips & Tools! Read More »
Another faceting question from the Mail Bag: Do you do any one on one facet instruction? – Joseph Hi, Joseph, Thanks for asking. I can do one-on-one coaching for people to learn faceting. But, for two reasons, I don’t do much of it: Learning to facet is pretty time-consuming. People who attend the Resident Training
Private Faceting Instruction Read More »
More faceting questions from the Mail Bag: I am faceting an Aquamarine with optimized angles using your Catamaran design from 2003. However, using GemRay to optimize the angles for the best figure or Merit, the weight fraction gets reduced from .663 to .488 which is a large loss in yield. Neglecting the issue of yield,
Optimizing Faceting Angles Question Read More »
More faceting questions from the Mail Bag: Cat hair scratches are killing me on my piece of spinel – been working on polish off and on since Sunday. Using 50k diamond on BA5T (crystalite in syringe – would you recommend switch to voodoo 14k/50k/100k, corian, darkside?) I’ve tried different pressures, different speeds, cleaning lap and
Problem with Spinel Polishing Read More »
More faceting questions from the Mail Bag: Like your site 🙂 Someone asked you about pricing and you did the usual dance around it, as you should! But please post something about earnings, since no one mentions what part-times or full-times are making yearly doing this. I wish to go into this full-time, but can
Mail Bag: Make Money Faceting Read More »
I’m happy to announce that the UKFCG (United Kingdom Facet Cutters’ Guild) has an official US presence now (Me). For some time, I’ve been telling American Faceters that the UK Guild offers a very top-quality newsletter, as well as some historical and training materials that are of very good value. Flattery has apparently earned me
UKFCG gains an official US presence Read More »
This question came in from one of the Mentoring Program members this week: Many of them (jewelers) dislike faceted girdles, because those hard sharp edges make setting the stone difficult, especially with Sunstone. I think this is true, if the girdle is THICK and/or if the jeweler isn’t really that skilled. My ideas on this
This is just in from the mail bag: I can’t thank you enough for recommending the 600 cutting lap and BA5T to pre-polish with 3,000 diamond powder and then to use the BA5T for the final polish with 50,000 mesh diamond powder for cutting corundum. I purchased the 2 BA5T’s and the 600 cutting lap.
Polishing Sapphire Read More »
This just in from the e-mail bag: I started to facet this piece of Sunstone yesterday and when I used the 600 lap this strange surface appeared on this particular facet and it wouldn’t polish away, any idea what or why? What amazed me was that it only happened on this one facet, the stone is
Polishing Sunstone Cleavage Problems Read More »