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Oh, and another thing: Claes, some of the rings on your instagram have faceted stones in bezel settings (which look really cool) Are these just really deep bezels to accommodate the pavilion of the stone, or is it open behind the bezel (with some sort of prongs or supports holding the stone far enough away that it doesn't dig into the finger)? Sorry if this question doesn't make sense, I've only bezel set flat-backed stones.
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Feb 5, 2017 04:53
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goodness fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jun 28, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 05:46
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littlebluellama posted:Two more questions about topaz: It does resemble chatoyance a bit but it's all on the surface of the stone from flat polished faces. Internal cleavage is fairly common too but if it's a cutting-grade piece it's probably been selected to be clean, and internal cleavages are usually very visible. If you really need to orient the cleavage plane that way it shouldn't be a major issue, the 9 degrees is just to make sure you don't end up having any facets where you're trying to polish the cleavage plane (which is possible but a huge pain). Topaz isn't too likely to cleave during cutting if you don't do anything ridiculous. Goodness: very nice! I think I'm seeing welo opals, a tsavorite crystal, a nice (Jeffrey's Quarry?) peach grossular, a red garnet of some description and a nice assortment of tourmalines (is the red one Russian?). Not sure about the center peachy stone, the black and white crystal to teh side or the faceted stones (unless they're Be-sapphire?)
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Feb 5, 2017 07:11
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Scarodactyl posted:It does resemble chatoyance a bit but it's all on the surface of the stone from flat polished faces. Internal cleavage is fairly common too but if it's a cutting-grade piece it's probably been selected to be clean, and internal cleavages are usually very visible. If you really need to orient the cleavage plane that way it shouldn't be a major issue, the 9 degrees is just to make sure you don't end up having any facets where you're trying to polish the cleavage plane (which is possible but a huge pain). Topaz isn't too likely to cleave during cutting if you don't do anything ridiculous. Good calls! I'm actually not sure of the identity on those last few, waiting for the notes to be sent. The tourmalines are what caught my eye first but that tsavorite is very nice. Should have them in hand by Friday and will upload more pictures
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Feb 5, 2017 08:34
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littlebluellama posted:Oh, and another thing: It's all good! Basically yes, deep bezels. I think they're design dependant but can look very, very cool. Extra benefit being they give lots more protection for stones like emeralds! I bought a ton of cool stuff that I will definitely post when I'm home. Tucson is a magical place, and with only two intensive days there my brain is basically a puddle.
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Feb 6, 2017 02:26
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Claes Oldenburger posted:White gold is an extremely different beast to work with. It cracks easily and often when cold worked, and is very difficult (compared to yellow gold and silver) to set stones in. Gold and its alloys hold a polish extremely well like JohnnyRnR said and will stay shiny for a very, very long time. Silver does not do this, it's okay to work with but to stay looking bright and shiny with everyday wear is pretty difficult without getting it re-polished periodically. Massive necropost, but at the point where I'm going to hand over money for the engagement ring, and was tossing up between Platinum and White Gold. Jeweller is quoting 6250 AUD vs 7500 AUD for the ring including the sapphire for white gold vs platinum so first instinct was to save some bucks and go with White gold, but is that fine for every day wear?
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Feb 6, 2017 05:57
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My gem prof says normies can't even get into the good shows with all the cool gem rough and stuff. 
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Feb 6, 2017 07:37
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Xun posted:My gem prof says normies can't even get into the good shows with all the cool gem rough and stuff. Heh, by 'good shows' he's talking about the shows that suck to buy low-end stuff and cool rough. Because they feature primarily high-end already-cut material, and things from the retail side of the business. But if you do want to get into the high-end shows to look around, filling out the paperwork can be a huge pain in the rear end... unless you get into AGTA first, because it seems that having an AGTA badge in your name is sufficient evidence that you're not a normie, and AGTA is pretty easy to get into. Overall, I've generally had a lot more luck with Kino, Pueblo, Day's Inn, Granada, 22nd street, the Miner's Coop, and JGX. You'll often have to high grade out the best pieces of rough from a big pile, but the prices are way lower and there's a lot of variety. What are you looking for in particular? Tunicate fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 07:51
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Massive necropost, but at the point where I'm going to hand over money for the engagement ring, and was tossing up between Platinum and White Gold. From the consumer end, platinum has to be buffed every few years and white gold has to be redipped every couple of years, so maintenance is pretty much a wash.
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Feb 6, 2017 17:20
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Massive necropost, but at the point where I'm going to hand over money for the engagement ring, and was tossing up between Platinum and White Gold. No worries! Depending on the white gold it won't need to be re-dipped (I don't plate my white golds, because they're pretty white already). 99% of the rings I make that are white are in white gold, it works great. Platinum is also great but a different colour, more of a grey tone. Xun posted:My gem prof says normies can't even get into the good shows with all the cool gem rough and stuff. Tunicate posted:Heh, by 'good shows' he's talking about the shows that suck to buy low-end stuff and cool rough. Because they feature primarily high-end already-cut material, and things from the retail side of the business. Yep basically this. AGTA was cool because I saw natural green diamonds and layouts of blue sapphires/rubies/spinels/tourmalines that make my head spin, but as far as rough goes these other places were way better. TUCSON GEMS:  Potato phone photo but in order from top left down Row 1: Very dark tealy green tourmaline Dark orange mali garnet Heliodors Heliodors Row 2: Cerium doped YAG Tanzanite Aquamarine Morganite Row 3: Very very light pink synthetic sapphire (100 grams) Claes Oldenburger fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Feb 7, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 22:36
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AlbieQuirky posted:From the consumer end, platinum has to be buffed every few years and white gold has to be redipped every couple of years, so maintenance is pretty much a wash. What about if the person I'm buying it for has sensitive skin? It looks like I'd be safe with platinum but white gold might be iffy
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Feb 10, 2017 00:05
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Most jewelry reactions aren't from the metal; they're usually from hand lotion, soap, or moisture trapped under the ring. In ten years I don't believe I've never seen a single case of a customer being allergic to precious metal jewelry of any type.
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Feb 10, 2017 02:05
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It's possible to be allergic to nickel or less commonly copper, both of which often feature in some alloys including white gold. I have a cousin who is allergic to nickel, or at least thinks she is.
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Feb 10, 2017 02:16
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I've been thinking about starting to facet or cut rough stones as a hobby soon. I am in the Bay Area and I was thinking about going to the Mineral & Gem Society of Castro Valley workshop or the San Francisco Gem & Mineral Society to see if this is something I can do long term before buying the equipment. Does anyone have any recommendations about what else I should do if I wanted to start out as an amateur lapidary?
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Feb 10, 2017 03:14
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Scarodactyl posted:It's possible to be allergic to nickel or less commonly copper, both of which often feature in some alloys including white gold. I have a cousin who is allergic to nickel, or at least thinks she is. My husband found out he was allergic to nickel when he started wearing his wedding ring. He said he was allergic to marriage, but a titanium band fixed him up.
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Feb 10, 2017 04:46
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Pigasus posted:I've been thinking about starting to facet or cut rough stones as a hobby soon. I am in the Bay Area and I was thinking about going to the Mineral & Gem Society of Castro Valley workshop or the San Francisco Gem & Mineral Society to see if this is something I can do long term before buying the equipment. I'm actually super interested in this and I'm near the bay area as well
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Feb 10, 2017 04:54
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Pigasus posted:I've been thinking about starting to facet or cut rough stones as a hobby soon. I am in the Bay Area and I was thinking about going to the Mineral & Gem Society of Castro Valley workshop or the San Francisco Gem & Mineral Society to see if this is something I can do long term before buying the equipment. Goodpancakes posted:I'm actually super interested in this and I'm near the bay area as well Best thing you can do is take a class to see if you like it, either faceting or cabbing whichever seems to be most interesting to you. Once that's out of the way you'll have an idea of the process, and then can buy tools based on your budget and what you want to accomplish. After 7 months of doing it so far, there's no turning back  it's really, really satisfying taking rough to a finished stone and even more so when you see it in jewellery.
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Feb 10, 2017 06:37
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Pigasus posted:I've been thinking about starting to facet or cut rough stones as a hobby soon. I am in the Bay Area and I was thinking about going to the Mineral & Gem Society of Castro Valley workshop or the San Francisco Gem & Mineral Society to see if this is something I can do long term before buying the equipment. Goodpancakes posted:I'm actually super interested in this and I'm near the bay area as well I'm not sure what the gem society has for sale or includes with their classes, but if they want you to bring your own quartz rough is a really good starting material! Synthetic is even better because it's cheaper and can come in quite bright colors. It is a lot harder to find though, at least for me. I personally don't like faceting glass, although my only attempt has been with some uranium glass and having it fall apart on me before I even got done cutting it with a gem saw.
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Feb 10, 2017 07:08
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LastDay posted:What about if the person I'm buying it for has sensitive skin? It looks like I'd be safe with platinum but white gold might be iffy I am pretty heavily allergic to nickel in base metal compounds and have never had any issues with white gold, for one random datapoint. On the other hand, if the white gold didn't work for her, you'd be out a bit more than the current $1250 differential between the gold and the platinum to replace the ring after the fact. On the third hand, maybe she'll like white gold more (I do, especially with sapphires). You can order nickel-free white gold, which is more expensive than standard but still less than platinum. My understanding is that it's a gold/palladium alloy? Maybe one of the jewelers will explain more. Claes Oldenburger, it's good to hear there are white golds out there now that don't need re-dipping! All my white gold rings are 30 - 90 years old, so they do. This makes me more interested in adding a white gold anniversary band in the future! AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 08:09
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AlbieQuirky posted:I am pretty heavily allergic to nickel in base metal compounds and have never had any issues with white gold, for one random datapoint. On the other hand, if the white gold didn't work for her, you'd be out a bit more than the current $1250 differential between the gold and the platinum to replace the ring after the fact. On the third hand, maybe she'll like white gold more (I do, especially with sapphires). Yes completely nickel free white gold is a gold/palladium alloy, which does make it a bit darker/more grey. I looked into this a lot while shopping around for white golds for our shop, and it's tough when so many metals are marketed by their trade names not their ingredients. From what I understand it all comes down to how "stable" the nickel is. If the nickel ions are stable, they stay locked into the metal and are not released which would result in irritation. I have a very, very cursory knowledge of the subject and am by no means a metallurgist, but that is the idea I got from what I had read. Almost all new white golds that include nickel have other additives to make them stable resulting in no irritation.
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Feb 10, 2017 17:16
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Best thing you can do is take a class to see if you like it, either faceting or cabbing whichever seems to be most interesting to you. Once that's out of the way you'll have an idea of the process, and then can buy tools based on your budget and what you want to accomplish. After 7 months of doing it so far, there's no turning back I'm having trouble finding an actual class-but the societies I found have open workshop hours. Is there anywhere I should check for classes? Maybe some key terms would help my Google searching. My work involves so much polishing that I figured I might as well use it to create something beautiful~  Xun posted:I'm not sure what the gem society has for sale or includes with their classes, but if they want you to bring your own quartz rough is a really good starting material! Synthetic is even better because it's cheaper and can come in quite bright colors. It is a lot harder to find though, at least for me. I personally don't like faceting glass, although my only attempt has been with some uranium glass and having it fall apart on me before I even got done cutting it with a gem saw. That's an awesome tip! It's good to know that quartz can be a good starter stone.
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Feb 10, 2017 20:17
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Pigasus posted:I'm having trouble finding an actual class-but the societies I found have open workshop hours. Is there anywhere I should check for classes? Maybe some key terms would help my Google searching. I think I just searched faceting classes? I forget how I found them, sorry! My humble suggestion is beryl or garnet to start with, mostly because they polish way easier than quartz. If you're interested and don't mind dropping a couple bucks this book will be your manual https://www.amazon.com/Amateur-Gems...9S36A3W86VDCK2F I met the author at Tucson this year and he is a wonderful man who really just wanted people to learn proper methods, since the old books are full of improper ones (and some faceting designs that are impossible). What sort of polishing work do you do now? Knowing how metal polished from making jewellery helped a ton when seeing whether or not my polish was good cutting stones.
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Feb 10, 2017 23:37
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Who wants some purple apatite? One time find, super limited with only a 200ish crystals left. These were selling for $3-500 this year before the Tucson show. 150-200 each, pm if interested 
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Feb 11, 2017 07:39
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Another guy is quoting 3-800 for the same material, if anyone wants one let me know before the end of today! They won't be priced under 200 for much longer
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Feb 11, 2017 20:18
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Claes Oldenburger posted:I think I just searched faceting classes? I forget how I found them, sorry! That's OK. It actually helped! I'll look into getting that book! I have polished metals, ceramics, and ceramic/metal composites. I figured since I had so much experience with polishing and I liked gems so much, I should try to combine them by looking into faceting.
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Feb 11, 2017 22:03
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Pigasus posted:I have polished metals, ceramics, and ceramic/metal composites. I figured since I had so much experience with polishing and I liked gems so much, I should try to combine them by looking into faceting. I'd say that's as good a reason as any!
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Feb 11, 2017 23:08
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goodness posted:Another guy is quoting 3-800 for the same material, if anyone wants one let me know before the end of today! They won't be priced under 200 for much longer Love 'em, but post-tucson is a hard time for purchases of ye fine mineral specimenes. Where are they from, if you don't mind me asking? I've seen nice ones from Afghanistan, Maine and Brazil but they always seem to have a very squat crystal form.
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Feb 11, 2017 23:42
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How could I go about finding a jeweller who could custom make me a set of cufflinks and tie bar, with star sapphires (lab created is fine) and white metal (rhodium plated?). Is this something that most like, non-chain jewellers would be fine to do or is it more specialized?
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Feb 12, 2017 04:05
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Scarodactyl posted:Love 'em, but post-tucson is a hard time for purchases of ye fine mineral specimenes. They are from a find in Afghanistan, haven't found another pocket like them since. Tonight's the last night of the show! Still have a dozen or so for 150-200 each.
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Feb 12, 2017 04:12
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 Aw yeah just finished an amethyst trilliant
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Feb 13, 2017 18:28
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Nice! It looks great.
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Feb 13, 2017 21:23
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Here's an interesting data plot of diamond pricing (from Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5u05br/diamond_prices_by_carat_and_clarity_oc/) of http://diamondse.info/ a few years ago. The horizontal line of no-data at ~$1500 is because the web scraper missed a page. And someone did the same data set based on colour: 
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Feb 14, 2017 22:56
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Claes Oldenburger posted:I'd say that's as good a reason as any! Hey Claes, do you still do custom jewelry on commission? If so, I'd love to work with you on another piece. What's your email?
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Feb 15, 2017 05:18
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unknown posted:Here's an interesting data plot of diamond pricing (from Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5u05br/diamond_prices_by_carat_and_clarity_oc/) of http://diamondse.info/ a few years ago. I think the clarity column is upside down? Very cool info though. Coca Koala posted:Hey Claes, do you still do custom jewelry on commission? If so, I'd love to work with you on another piece. What's your email? Sure do, I'm actually FINALLY in the process of building my own studio space and moving to do my own thing full time! info at thisishewn.com
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Feb 15, 2017 17:48
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Sure do, I'm actually FINALLY in the process of building my own studio space and moving to do my own thing full time! info at thisishewn.com Awesome! I sent you a message through the site, hopefully you're interested in taking on the project!
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Feb 17, 2017 05:37
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15ct Tsavorite from the Tucson parcel I posted about Check that rainbow out!
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Feb 22, 2017 05:48
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I love that tsavorite! Getting nice crystals is always hard given how they usually form. I've been cutting a bunch of cabs this week!   I got a nice selection of Moroccan agates at Tucson this year. There is a lot of variety in these guys--the pink banded ones are all from one piece. The large one has a thick calcite rim and a calcite core.  Some chrysoprase (Australian material from Tucson) and pink chalcedony (Texas Springs, NV limb cast material).   This is some neat Ethiopian aquamarine I picked up at Tucson--it has a beautiful silvery sheen down the C-axis.  Cat's eye aquamarine doesn't always show up well in photos but it's quite bright and mobile in person.  Gem silica; the center and left are Mexican cut from the same piece, and the rightmost piece is trimmed from a piece of Needles Blue from California, an unusual rhyolite mixture that sometimes has seams of gem silica mixed in. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Feb 27, 2017 |
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Feb 27, 2017 06:59
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Goodness are you going to the new Crown Collection opening? I forget whether or not you're close to Denver.
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Apr 2, 2017 19:31
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Life hack: get hit by truck, use ensuing insurance payout to buy a FANCY ULTRATEC YAAAAAAA
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Apr 14, 2017 21:52
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Xun posted:Life hack: get hit by truck, use ensuing insurance payout to buy a FANCY ULTRATEC YAAAAAAA Not a great situation but ended up YEEAAAAHHHHHH
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Apr 16, 2017 04:06
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