Lab-Grown Rubies and Sapphires: Flux Vs. Flame Fusion

hello my name is tom chatham i'm president of chatham created gems in san francisco i want to talk to you today about ruby created ruby if it's red it's called a ruby if it's any other color it's called the sapphire there are basically three different types there's flame fusion there is tchaikovsky or pulled type of sapphire and there is the flux grown sapphire the crystal structure in a flame fusion ruby or a pulled ruby and sapphire is very disoriented because of the way it was made now this is the way it formed and it looks like glass it is not a natural crystal face this is a flux grown ruby chatham is the pioneer in this particular area takes eight months to grow this crystal and it is identical to the natural ruby or sapphire legally people can call this a created ruby or sapphire depending upon the color gemologically speaking it is not the same at all in the flame fusion sapphire it basically can melt the constituents of what corundum the mineral sapphire is made out of and you can melt it and achieve something that is similar to the naturally occurring stone it has some of the characteristics it's very inexpensive it's very easy to make it cost about a penny a carrot takes about an hour to make it doesn't look like a natural ruby or sapphire it doesn't test as a natural ruby or sapphire the flux grown ruby and sapphire takes eight to ten months to grow and what we've done is duplicated the conditions that we think exists deep in the earth we stand back and nature grows as crystal this hasn't been cut and polished to look like this this is the way it would look if it was found in the earth usually not so nice on the outside but the internal structure is identical and it is a process that can't be hurried and it takes an expert gemologist to separate the flux grown sapphire or ruby from the natural the advantage of using the flux grown sapphire or ruby is because the structure is identical you get the same brilliance the same reflection of light from the crystal structure that is what made emeralds ruby sapphires so attractive to people in the first place if you just want a colored stone flame fusion or glass would be sufficient but as you know when you see a piece of colored glass it doesn't look like a gemstone so the answer is chatham the only company in the world that grows a flex grown sapphire

Channel: Michelle Rahm

Views: 405,075

Keywords: lab-grown rubies, lab-grown sapphires, chatham, flame fusion, flux grown, ruby, sapphire, crystal

Id: a0N4JYN9lFI

Length: 4min 0sec (240 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2010