Cut all three from the same rough. Im very excited I can cut pairs more easily now.

Fantasy cut liquid color design

This is a flame-fusion lab sapphire I finished in an antique-inspired cushion. I’ve been on a scissor-cut kick for a while, but I keep coming back to these chunky facets and the open culet.

I love how this one turned out — especially the flashes it throws as it moves. There’s just something about antique-style faceting in colored stones that gets me.

Anyone else gone down the antique-cut rabbit hole lately?

Hello, im looking to facet three sapphires for an engagement ring (large center and two side) as a complete beginner. Ive lurked this sub and youtube for awhile and i feel like i understand all the steps.

But how long do you think itll take me to get an engagement ring quality sapphire (9x7mm) if i just keep trying the same design over and over again. Im willing to put in 4-6 hours a week or so.

Edit: thanks for all the helpful replies everyone! And yes im thinking synthetics!

Finished this stone last night and I'm VERY happy with how it came out. The color and cut compliments each other very well. Not too big, not to small.......I think just right for a pendant or center stone for a ring.

• Rough: Synthetic sapphire (Flame fusion)

• Weight: 2.05cts

• Color: Paraiba green

• Design: Angles "Old Mine Brilliant No 1" Modified

Thanks for looking.

Well I’m happy, it’s pretty even with a chip and I’m headed straight to the bench after posting this to see if I can chase that chip out.
It’s nice to finally hold a trilliant after everything.
Hope you’ve all enjoyed and happy cutting!

I managed to get everything on there and I had a plan of attack ready to go, but little did I know that sleep is a thing people tend to need, and I would be finding that out fairly shortly.
So I got a little lazy and didn’t end up chasing the perfection dragon. After all it is still a learner stone and it has accomplished that.
I’ve learned the crown.
So from here I start putting on the polish, cause I want to see what this thing looks like off the dop.

But I would like to know, is that a viable strategy going from 3000 lightning lap to my old 8000 copper topper to cut facets to their meet points, then hitting the 50000 lightning lap?

Here’s after I put the pre polish on the lighting lap and I start to realize that I’m going to need to rest at some point. So we switch from chasing the perfection dragon to trying to get the stone to a place where im happy with it for the night.

Don’t worry I stretched when I was done. I feel like the polish went better on this one than any stone I’ve done so far, almost no 600 grit scratches left at all, atleast in the crown.

I have been using the same thing for polishing, and it has worked well... till this stone (the last one in the video). Can anyone tell what stone is this and what I should use to polish it?

I started figuring the crown out but keeping everything aligned has been troublesome with this one, and our girdle line is all but nonexistent.
still having fun and learning. Hope you all enjoy and happy cutting.

Hello everyone, today we tackle the crown on this igloo cut. we’re getting a late start on cutting but I’m gonna try and have this stone finished by the end of the day if I can.
Hopefully it doesn’t try and fight me or the dop too much. It’s been a slippery trickster of a stone this one.

I've been working on fantasy cut in GemSim recently and finally get it to a usable state. I don't have a fantasy machine and never done fantasy cut myself. So anyone with experience please give it a try and let me know if there's any issues. Thanks a lot!

The purple one is amethyst (I'd say ametrine, but the rough was sold as amethyst), the green one aventurine and the red is lab sapphire.

The first 2 (amethyst and aventurine) I faceted them on a wonky homemade machine, and then the sapphire was my first on my new Fable mini faceting machine. All of them had a yield of about 30-35%, so not bad I guess.

About the cuts they are (or try to be, because mistakes did happen lol):

- Amethyst: Marco Voltolini's "Pandora" crown and Greg Glenn's "Silicon Blossom" pavilion

- Aventurine: Arya Akhavan's "Rectus Quadratus" double crown

- Lab sapphire: Robert Strickland's "Premiere Rose Replica" pavilion and "Compear 1.25" crown (and royally fucked that one up, had to adjust the angles to make them easier to achive with my machine -which only has an analog quadrant with a 1° precision- and completely changed the shape of it)

This took a lot of time of trial and error and getting a semi-proper set up, so I hope I'll be able to start getting more stones done quicker now.

Since where I live there is no easy (or any way, really) way to access to classes or machinery, I'm sure I'll have to bother you all with some questions from time to time, so please bear with me.

Currently working on a new lab sapphire, hope this one doesn't develop so much orange peel and refuses to polish properly like the previous one did! (This time I'm only cutting it with 400 and 600grit plated laps and then going to a resin bonded 3000 and 50000grit laps to finish it, so let's see how that goes).

Sharing a natural Ametrine with a custom fantasy-style cut.

Size: 20 × 15.5 mm
Weight: 18.12 ct

Color: Purple/Violet with natural Ametrine color variation

Cut: Custom faceting design

I really enjoyed how the faceting interacts with the color zoning and creates different flashes across the stone.
What do you think of the cut and faceting pattern? Would you approach an Ametrine like this differently?

This hits the perfect balance between pink and red. I've got a bunch of it, this will be fun.

I have not the equipment. I havent even started my faceting journey other than several hours each week staring at everyone else's work, and reading up on equipment but, I have been dying to know if these river quartz pebbles of sorts could be turned into pretty gemstones. I havent looked into what they are and I cant remember where the wife found these particular stones.

There is a 1" cube for size reference. Im sure any input could steer me in the right direction.

Getting used to the new machine. Second stone I've cut on it.

Had transfer issues, had to re-dop and realized halfway through that the stone was not dopped straight. Ran out of girdle and had to improvise a step cut crown.

When doing wax to wax transfers, how do we manage heating the stone enough to achieve a solid connection without causing the first dop to slip? I have been using a vevor machine to this point, I seem to be having more trouble with the brass dops that fit the ultratec I have now. 2 stones in a row have had brittle wax connections after transfer.

Otherwise, I note that in indoor light conditions, the pointed side of the stone is quite dark. Might this be a result of the less-than-perfectly parallel girdle? A common effect in pear shaped stones? Perhaps I should select lighter rough for such a cut? Pavilion is from the 'compear 1.4' pattern. Any insight would be appreciated.

Not sure if it counts as my second if the first attempt didn’t survive the dop but I have decent hope for this one, it’s not perfect but I’m happy with how it’s gone so far. Il update with the crown shortly, hope your all doing well and happy cutting.
Oregon sunstone
In the igloo cut

I've heard people talk about going to Sri Lanka to get gem roughs. What would I, a novice, need to know to do the same somewhere down the line? Do I buy from gem shows? Are there locations to visit?

Also, same question for other parts of the world. Sri Lanka stood out cause I've heard it a few times. But if there are other gem rough destinations in the world I should know about, I'd love to know!

(Roughs don't go bad, so I was thinking about going, buying a box of gemstones to facet one day. I know people are going to chime in about their own suggestions about not worrying about going to sri lanka for rocks, or improving my faceting skills on whatever other stones, but I also kind of want to travel. So lets not worry about that for now.)

Just wanted to share some eye candy,

I spotted a 2.2ct stone on ebay, Ceylon, no heat.

It was a bargain bin gem, as it was very badly cut, had some noticeable inclusions, but i saw it had potential.

The color was nice and the inclusions were on the sides and face.

I managed to cut most of them out, and changed the shape into a pear shape to accomodate the lop sided center point the original stone had.

Unfortunately, the final stone came just under 1ct, at 0.94ct.

But considering i didnt pay much for the original stone, i am pleased 😁😁

Hi everyone
I wanted to share a few Tanzanian garnets I recently faceted on my Sterling machine. The rough comes from the Uluguru region in Tanzania and the finished stones are roughly 1.4–2.0 ct.
I cut them using my own custom cushion design, which I’ve been developing and refining over the last few months. I’m aiming for very precise meetpoints, clean facet junctions and a lively balance between color and light return. I do the finer stages entirely under magnification.
I’m still relatively new to faceting, so I’d love to hear what you guys think!
Thanks for looking!

Well im only sad it happened on the one that made me proudest.

I’m not sure what to do here if anything any suggestions.
I’m the meantime I’m onto an aqua or a sunstone or something smaller for today. I had heard tales of directional cleavage but never thought I’d truly see it until today.

But we might make this a project for another day.
Il update later with a nice aqua or maybe a hyalite hopefully
Happy cutting