The process of faceting

[Eu_citzen]

TheRockCollector asked me to post a series of pics how faceting is done.

First step would be to cut a flat spot on the chosen rough stone and attaching it a "dop stick" which holds the stone trough the hole cutting process.
In my case its a aluminium dop.
In this series I'm going to be using a garnet which is attached to the dop stick with loctite superglue.

*Tips*
I occasionally double check the clarity at the same time as the flat spot is cut by going to 600 grit lap.

This is what it can look like after the rough is attached to the dop stick.

I've started doing some pre-forming to quickly remove a bit more material.
I like to do so after attaching it on the dop stick.

Next step will be to center in the first facets with a rough (360) lap, this may look like this:

All pavilion facets are roughed in with the 360 lap:

Girdle facets are roughed in:

Now I'm starting the fine adjusting with a 600 lap, and from here I will later update this topic.
Will take a while, a bit on the lazy side, lol.

So, now here we're into fine tuning how and where each facet meets its neighbour.
Sort of the end sport from the previous image.
Final and very small adjustments can still be done at pre-polishing.

After doing the work with the 600 lap I go to 3K diamond to pre-polish and polish with 100K diamond.

After being done with the pavilion I have to re-dop; this is done with a dopstick which can take the already cut part and hold it. Super glue is applied and left to harden.

After the glue has set I heat the dopstick which holds the uncut part, to release it.
The cut part is protected by a damp piece of paper to not get any damage.

This is the stone after the dopstick was removed:

I must now check to see if anything has changed position etc.
I do this by setting it flat to the lap.

By using a marker pen I can easily 'dial in' to get it back to where it needs to be.

Note that in the above picture only part of the corner was in touch with the lap.
This is what it should look like:

The same basic steps are repeated.. I forgot to take pics until pre-polishing:

After everything is polished and polished you mostly put it in acetone to remove the glue and wait.
Hopefully you'll get a neat gem out of it. I still need to take a better pic of the finished gem.



I'll answer questions best I can.

 

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[Diggit]

excellent post,sir. I always thought that they were faceted using a type of chisel or impact "fracturing."
(Which seems silly now that I REALLY think about it.)
what do the faceting tools look like?

 

[TheRockCollector]

Awesome

TheRockCollector asked me to post a series of pics how faceting is done.

First step would be to cut a flat spot on the chosen rough stone and attaching it a "dop stick" which holds the stone trough the hole cutting process.
In my case its a aluminium dop.
In this series I'm going to be using a garnet which is attached to the dop stick with loctite superglue.



This is what it can look like after the rough is attached to the dop stick.

I've started doing some pre-forming to quickly remove a bit more material.
I like to do so after attaching it on the dop stick.

Next step will be to center in the first facets with a rough (360) lap, this may look like this:

All pavilion facets are roughed in with the 360 lap:

Girdle facets are roughed in:

Now I'm starting the fine adjusting with a 600 lap, and from here I will later update this topic.
Will take a while, a bit on the lazy side, lol.

I'll answer questions best I can.

Thanks Eu, it really is amazing how you can take the first picture and make it look like the last picture!

 

[Eu_citzen]

excellent post,sir. I always thought that they were faceted using a type of chisel or impact "fracturing."
(Which seems silly now that I REALLY think about it.)
what do the faceting tools look like?

If I find the time tomorrow I'll get some pics, that might make it easier to understand.

Rock, these are the best pics of about 20. lol

 

[Eu_citzen]

Well diggit, here's the post on the equipment.

First of all you need the faceting machine, I have a raytech Shaw.
It needs a good light when working, this came with my machine.

Notice it has a thingie to hold water, this water is to cool down everything during grinding/cutting.
Also keeps the hazardous rock dust out of the air.
The white thing you see on top of it is a filter, I filter my water before use.

You need what we call "laps", basically very flat discs charged with diamond and/or polishing powders. This is the one I use to rough in everything; 360 diamond I think.

Here are two different laps, the blue one is for pre-polishing only. 1200 diamond.
The other one is a "two-in-one" lap, I can do both pre-polishing (3K diamond) and polishing on that one.

We do of course need something to attach the rough rock onto; dopsticks.
There are several kinds, as you can see.

The dopsticks are then inserted into the handpiece where all the adjustments like angles, index etc are made.

Of course you also need something to check your work under magnification, aka a loupe.
10x triplet is standard.

 

[Diggit]

Excellent Sir. Those laps are a lot bigger than I would have expected.

 

[Eu_citzen]

The diameter is approx 6 inches, so not that big.
The pics make them look big, just a few quickie shots while taking a new pic of the stones progress.
There are bigger ones out there, depends a little on the faceting machine your using. 6" and 8" are the most common sizes.

 

[Eu_citzen]

Will update the next couple of days, have some more photos to edit.

 

[Eu_citzen]

And here is the finished gem, a test cut in my own design: