Cutting my own gemstone design in Blue Topaz

hello welcome to Matt's corner of gem cutting I will be cutting a design that I've created myself and I wanted to do that in a piece of topaz this one here has come out of old jewelry it has some chips and other Nicks and little signs of wear so makes a great candidate so before I get started on the cutting I rough the table just a little bit so it's not doesn't have that smooth polish surface with the super glue we'll adhere better to the stone I draw some cross hair marks on the surface of the stone to Mark where I want the center point of my cut to be and I also put marks onto my dopstick so I could use these marks for aligning the dot to the stone to get it centered once I have that ready I place a drop of super glue onto the stone and place the dot and press firmly I give it a quick check to see if it aligned where I wanted it to in this case the stone looks slightly off so I break the bond and move it over slightly till it looked more centered and after another check I add just a little bit more Super Glue to the outside edge of the top and the stone and then I let it sit overnight to let the glue set up I start by using a heavier 180 grit to give this piece a slight preform as the shape of my diagram is very different than this piece I am starting with so I use the 180 grit to cut in my girdle facets until they fit into the piece I have to work with and then I also cut in the first tier a pavilion facets until they meet a center point and look like a good starting point for moving on with the stone roughed in I use a 600 grit lap to cut in all the facets on the Pavilion side of this Stone I've sped up most of these cutting Clips to two times speed to show more of the cutting process while maintaining quick progression within the video and if you've seen my other videos You'll likely notice that my picture quality is improved I bought a new camera between this video and my last one for that reason and so far I am really liking it it looks pretty good this design that I am using for this stone is one of the first cutting diagrams that I came up with I created it while I was still in the learning stages of fastening as I became more experienced I went back and I optimized the design to improve the light performance the inspiration for this design comes from Link's Blue Shield from The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker which is one of the games that I played growing up I wanted to have the iconic Triforce in a shield shape cut my design actually has a symmetrical trillion outline but I was able to accomplish what I wanted by having a shield bike design with a prominent Triforce I wanted to cut this design in a blue stone as to keep the same color as the shield from the game so I chose blue topaz topaz has a hardness of eight this makes it a great stone for use and jewelry as it doesn't wear real easily it's bright blue color comes from color enhancing a natural crystal through a process using irradiation this is a typical treatment for most topaz and jewelry I really like the high luster of topaz it shines up really nicely and makes some great pieces when cut it is usually clean of inclusions and makes a great natural material for showing the intricate Artistry that goes into a design the way the light moves through a stone based upon the Angles and position of the facets can create lighter or darker areas within a stone and topaz shows the contrast very well onto the next stage of cutting this gemstone I used a 3000 grit diamond on a 10 lap this is a pre-polishing stage meaning I use the 3000 as an intermediate grit to grind away the coarseness of the 600 grit and prepare the stone for receiving a nice final polish being able to create my own designs really adds to my experience as a gem cutter I am not limited to the standard Cuts or designs that others have made available I can use my imagination to think of all sorts of possible designs to try creating that are unique and original to myself I feel more connected with my work when it is all something that I have done myself from design to cut and Polished the finished piece is completely my own artwork I have the pre-polishing face completed I will use 50 000 Diamond grit on another tin lap for the final polish I give a quick squirt with a squirt bottle to just lightly lubricate the surface of the lap so I'm not cutting completely dry I don't want to flood the lap with water as this will cause the lap to need to be recharged sooner and cutting on the lap nearly dry works really well for polishing check out the Polish with the 50k right next to the 3K it's pretty big difference 50 000 grit is a really nice polish it can really bring out the life in a stone and make it just pop The Pavilion side is all polished up and it is looking good to transfer the stone I picked out a cone dot which will fit nicely onto the stone so I'll place the dot with the stone into the top and I'll place the cone dot into the bottom of this transfer jig and I'll use some gel super glue into the cone dot for the transfer and slide them together let that set up all right let's have time to set so let's take it out to the wet some paper towel this will keep the the side I've transferred it to cool while I use a flame to remove the original Dot it's using an alcohol amp and I hold the side that's being heated as a pair of pliers come on and we're ready to get cutting on the crown side when placing a stone back in the quill for cutting the crown side it needs to be aligned properly for the facets to cut in right I can get it in fairly close to alignment just by eyeballing it at first but then as I'm cutting it I check to see how well the new facets I am cutting compared to level wise with the girdle and the Pavilion facets and there's this cheater on the side of the master that black knob I'm twisting slightly rotates the stone for alignment and I just make slight adjustments using that until the new facets I am cutting are parallel with the girdle so that I when I cut in all my crown facets they'll be exactly where they need to be in a line properly using a diagram is nice and that it gives you the Angles and the index for each facet that is to be cut but how far you actually cut in the facet is all done by eye as you cut it in you look at the facet that you're cutting and you just keep cutting it in until it is where it needs to be there's usually some sort of meat on the stone that based on what you've previously cut in that the next tier will meet at in some way whether it's a meat at the girdle or a point on one of the previous facets that you cut in even ones that are cut in you still have to look at the stone quite a bit while cutting when you get to the pre-polish and the polishing stages you still have to make sure that it's polishing correctly and even evenly throughout the facet and make any adjustments needed or cut more until it's properly cut for that stage of the Stone here we have the crown done with the pre-polish and it's ready for polish with the 50 000 that's got rid of all the grip marks from the 600 that damage of that Grit while I'm polishing with the 50 000 the final polish is one of the most important steps when cutting a gemstone as anything left on the surface of the stone will be seen so you don't want to have scratching or other things going on sometimes you have to work the lap or change up your approach when cutting to get the Polish just right and perfect now I didn't have much issues with this topaz it polished fairly smoothly the only thing left now is the cut in the table and this bad boy will be done and with the crown cut in you could see just how nice the Polish is on this Stone it is looking really good and can't wait to see it off the top it's looking gorgeous because I use super glue the dot my Stones I have to use acetone to dissolve the super glue to avoid chipping or damaging the stone but it's worth the wait I don't want to damage stones after I put so much effort into cutting them by trying to heat the stone off and here it is all finished up it is a nice shiny piece that's for sure it's got a lot of Sparkle lots of contrast really looks just great so it finished up at 11.4 millimeters in size and is 4.15 carats so pretty good sized piece and I really like it being my own design you can see the Triforce pretty well on the crown here it's main thing I was going for but the design also has kind of a border with that outer set of facets on this crown that kind of create the border on the shield and it just has a overall pretty Pleasant look and I'm really happy with my design anyway thank you for coming along with me as I showed you the process of cutting my design in this Stone and I hope to have you back to see more of the fun designs and stones that I'll be cutting here in the future thank you

Channel: Matt's Corner of Gem Cutting

Views: 108,150

Keywords: Gemstone Cutting, Faceting a gemstone, Legend of Zelda Gemstone, Triforce Gemstone, Precision Faceting, US Gem Cutting, Hand Cut Gem, Faceting a topaz, Gemstone Faceting, How to cut a gemstone

Id: nn6OyCYbJo0

Length: 11min 47sec (707 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023