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Bouillon Rube posted:I know natural Alexandrite is stupid expensive and am prepared to spend a couple grand. Sadly, a couple grand's only going to get you a stone with limited color change that's a quarter to a third of a carat (3-4mm) at best. If that doesn't bother you, you can try looking at multicolour or africa gems, both of which have larger than average alexandrite inventories. Multicolour's inventory is especially large, but the quality is all over the map, whereas Africa's inventory is smaller but more curated. Depending upon the size/quality you're looking for, you may be able to find something that fits your budget. Best of luck!
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Jan 22, 2022 03:16
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Xun posted:Would a 12mm gem look bad on a pendant? This topaz I'm cutting for my gf is looking like it's going to be around that size and I'm conflicted between cutting it down or just going BEEG I have a ~12mm aqua cab in a double-bezel pendant that I like a lot. It's a good size as long as you're not wearing a super-busy pattern underneath it or something.
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Mar 12, 2022 04:02
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A friend of mine who's into gem collecting recently told me that she's hearing rumors of shortages in gem synthetic rough (corundum, chrysoberyl, beryl, and so forth) due to places closing down/not making it anymore. I tried googling for more info but didn't see any. Have any of you cutters/gem goons heard anything similar, or is a synthetic materials shortage just a rumor?
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Jun 9, 2022 05:32
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Really stoked I got that 8g chunk of LuAG from you. It's weird getting into the synthetic game now with things dropping out, but at least it's easier than trying to find nice natural sapphire rough Are the shortages in rough due to the current global supply chain issues hitting every other industry, or are deposits drying up, too? So much of what I know about gems is on the retail side and I want to learn more about the acquisition/cutting process, but it seems like a rough time all around.
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Jun 11, 2022 05:23
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Residency Evil posted:I want to buy a pair of diamond stud earrings for my wife. Is there any reason not to buy the from Costco? Seems like their prices are tough to beat. Honestly, it depends how deep into the weeds you want to get with assessing the quality. I just looked at studs on the Costco website and there's a lot of information they're not disclosing, namely: who graded these diamonds for their the color and clarity? Diamond grading is a subjective process, and some graders are going to be more 'forgiving' than others. This means that you could have a diamond that one grader says is colorless and free from visible defects, while another says they can see some yellow in it and some defects. So who's right? If you don't know who certified the diamonds (and you're not a trained professional), you don't know who to trust, which means you don't know if you're getting screwed or not. Now, I have no idea how forgiving Costco's diamond graders are (though I suspect they're more lenient than most, but not as egregious as some), and they don't appear to include any kind of certification to tell me. When you buy from independent jewelers, whether brick and mortar or online, they can typically tell you who graded their diamonds for their quality, and whether or not they're a trusted source. If it's important to you to know that you're getting exactly what you're paying for, you may want to pay extra for a place that certifies their diamond grades through independent sources. If you're willing to put your faith in Costco and accept that what you're buying may not be the same level of quality as stated on the website, then Costco's not a bad deal. It all comes down to what you personally want from the purchase, and how you choose to spend your money. Little addendum here: I only mentioned color and clarity here since Costco doesn't show any grading information about the quality of the cuts, but cut quality does make a big difference in the brightness and the sparkle of your diamonds. I can give you more details if you want, but I'm loath to get into it unless you're really curious, because it can get overwhelming fast and I don't want to make the process any more confusing than it already feels.
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Jul 8, 2022 01:20
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Does anyone? The kimberly process works as well as any system is going to, so the vast majority of stones now are going to be above board. Sometimes I hear people say 'oh I got an emerald/sapphire/ruby engagement ring because I didn't want a blood diamond' and I just kind of shake my head, because who the hell knows where/when some of those stones came from? I love colored stones with my whole heart, but you'll never catch me saying they're more ethical than diamonds. poo poo, even Montana sapphires involve you giving money to the state of Montana, and that's just unthinkable.
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Jul 8, 2022 19:18
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Anne Whateley posted:Don't milkshake duck moissanite for me It's not coming out of mines, so any human rights/ethical issues will be related to the production lines of the factories where it's produced. I'm not sure how many factories are making it these days, but I haven't heard any horror stories that would make me think you need to worry. Obviously the process is going to use some amount of energy, so it has an environmental impact, but what doesn't? Scarodactyl posted:One thing I like about working with industrial gems is that there isn't much in the way of added environmental cost to most of them--they are a necessary part of growing crystals for industry and using them for gems prevents them from being ground up and reprocessed (or even thrown out altogether). drat, that really is a great color! Nae fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 20:37
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BonerGhost posted:I love this color. In nature is there some other element that co-occurs with iron to make blue sapphires? I know almost nothing about gems and rocks in general. I want to know the answer to this, too, since I don't know it, but I'm gonna throw in my hat with a guess for cobolt!
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Jul 8, 2022 22:17
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Scarodactyl posted:Iron and titanium team up with intervalence charge transfer to get the blue. Cobalt is iirc used as a dopant in some rare flame fusion sapphire to give a more paraiaba-esque blue color but I don't think that's ever found in nature. It might be like emerald green nickel-doped sapphire where it requires very specific conditions to get the right oxidation state/lattice position and just isn't possible naturally. drat, this is super interesting. Posts like this remind me how much I still have to learn about gemology. Thanks!
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Jul 9, 2022 01:30
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My parents are retiring to Arizona this fall so I'm thinking of going as a regular person. I went as trade like ten years ago when I was still in the industry, so I'm wondering how different it will be as a layperson without access to everything.
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Aug 14, 2022 21:38
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Yeah I haven't been in a while but I'm also hoping to be there the prime time weekend. I usually go Fri-Mon of whatever weekend is the big one. I'm looking at the schedule and I can't actually tell which weekend is 'the weekend' to go to. Is it the 27th-29th of Jan, or the 3rd-5th of Feb?
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Aug 16, 2022 02:20
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Scarodactyl posted:I was interviewed by NPR for this marketplace segment about our scientific gems That’s awesome! On that note, I’ve been getting into silver/goldsmithing, and I recently made a bezel pendant with a GAGG I got from you. It turned out great, but I got so excited to set it that I forgot to solder on the bail before, and I had to make do with some weird ramshackle wirework to get a bail I could use. I’m going to leave it as is for now as a reminder of how far I’ve come later down the line, but for future pieces, can GAGG withstand the temps it takes to melt silver solder? For that matter, what about LuAG and YAG?
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Mar 21, 2023 02:33
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Tunicate posted:How hot does that silver solder get, anyway? Anywhere between 1300-1500 F (like 650-800 C), depending upon what type of solder you’re using.
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Mar 21, 2023 06:37
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Totally fair! I’m not in any rush to test it since GAGG isn’t cheap enough that I want to blow it up for fun, but I figured I’d ask in case you knew from experience. While we’re on the lumogarnet subject, have you ever come across an orangey version of the lumogarnets? I was thinking how slick it would look to have something with that spessartite body color with a neon orange glow in the sun, but I’ve never seen anything like that and I have my doubts it exists. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen orange fluorescence in any type of gem?
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Mar 21, 2023 17:22
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Claes Oldenburger posted:FWIW I won't solder anything with any stone other than a diamond (or sapphire but just ring sizing), and even then I try to keep them submerged in water while doing the work. This is good advice! On that note, I’m pleased to report I blew up my first stone: a 6mm LuAG I just got from Scarodactyl’s store. I had it set in the bezel and was just finishing up bending the metal over the top of the stone when the solder gave way (either because I didn’t use enough or because the joints weren’t close enough, I’m guessing) and the bezel came out with the stone in it. If it had been an expensive/irreplaceable stone, I would’ve pried open the bezel and started over, but since I was curious about how well lumogarnets handle heat, I decided to do a little experiment. Remembering Claes’s advice, I thought I’d use a little water basin to protect the stone, but I didn’t have a firesafe dish and I didn’t want to risk anything else exploding for the sake of one stone. Without that option, I tried smooshing a little bit of soldering clay into both sides of the bezel and soldered it that way. That ended up acting as a massive heatsink, leading me to put more heat on than necessary, so I scrapped the idea and scraped out the clay. In the process, I found a single internal stress fracture in the LuAG: probably a sign that my clever scheme was doomed to fail, but I decided to keep going anyway. With no water and no clay, I took one more crack at soldering in the stone with no protection—rawdogging, if you will. The stone survived the experience surprisingly well, though the pleasant lime green color became an icky urine yellow by the end. I wasn’t sure if that would go away or not, but I was sure I’d done a drat good job soldering the stone into place this time, so I killed the flame and dropped the stone into a beaker of water. You know where this is going. When I started the solder, I did my damndest to slowly heat up the piece, bringing all of the metal evenly up to temp, because I wanted to stress out the stone as little as possible. All that insight flew right the gently caress out of my head when I dropped it into the room-temperature water to cool off the metal band. Two things happened simultaneously: one, the urine color instantly returned to its pleasing green, and two, every square millimeter of the stone’s interior shattered at once. It was so absurd and violent that I just started laughing and couldn’t stop, and kept laughing until I was finished polishing the ring. So without further ado, I present to you, The Mess: 
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Apr 5, 2023 21:23
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Claes Oldenburger posted:The Mess TM can be beautiful and at the very least is a learning experience. Good job on trying! For a heatproof small container, my standard go to is a pop can. I chop it in two or closer to the bottom, flip it over, and fill the bottom with water. Use tweezers to hold the piece so the stone is submerged. I know people who will also fill it with sand or brown paper with the water to have more wet mass as protection. Thanks for the tip, I would have never thought of that! And yes, that’s good consolation, but the better consolation is knowing my old jewelry mentor learned the same lesson about 25 years ago with a customer’s pricey Burmese ruby 
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Apr 6, 2023 01:58
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Claes Oldenburger posted:Oh.....oh no. I think I'd just curl up for a week if I did that haha Same, which is one of the many reasons I’m thrilled there’s such an abundance of lab material for me to learn with!
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Apr 6, 2023 16:48
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Mad Hamish posted:Is there a book or website I could suggest to him that could help us figure out what is what? There are books and websites that could help you make some decent guesses, but ultimately you can’t know for sure what you’ve got until you go to an appraiser or a certified gemologist. If they’re any good, they’ll have the kind of equipment you need to properly identify gems, which includes (but is not limited to): loupe, scale, refractometer, different lights, and a dozen other pricey tools that end with -scope. The gemologists/appraisers will also have the education to make the occasional subjective call. Gem identification is a complex, nuanced business, and even trained professionals will disagree about the conclusions their colleagues draw from the same material. All of that is to say that you can have some fun playing around with the gems you bought, but if you want to know what they are for sure, you’re gonna have to pay for it.
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May 8, 2023 04:48
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I hit a big jewelry-making milestone today: I made my first three-stone ring! Like all creative projects I make, I’m struggling to ignore the (many) flaws, but I feel like it’s a really good first attempt. Next go-around, I want to make the claw prongs smaller and set the whole thing lower, but it’ll obviously depend on what size stones I use. This guy has a 7.4 YAG middle (cut by TenaciousFaceting on etsy), and the sides are 5mm LuAG rounds I got from our very own Scarodactyl. Thank you, Scarodactyl! 
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May 24, 2023 22:16
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That looks awesome. Have you been putting them up for sale and they’re getting snapped up fast from the store?
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Jul 2, 2023 17:55
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Speaking of instagram, I got one of @houseofsylas’s big honkin’ djeva cobalt spinels a few weeks ago, and I just put it in a temporary setting until I have the sawing skill to make its permanent home. The gem is absolutely garish and no one in their right mind would mistake it for the real deal, but I love it to pieces anyway and I can’t get enough of the color! 
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Jul 7, 2023 01:55
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Scarodactyl posted:Awesome! Eric is an amazing cutter, and he's worked really hard to source the best flame fusion cobalt spinels. Even minor impurities take the edge off the color--contemporary chinese production is hopeless. Those rupees are so cool and Zelda is so big right now that you could probably clear out all of your topaz rough by just churning out of a ton of rupees as practice and selling them at a discount.
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Jul 7, 2023 20:32
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I flush set my first stone! It’s a 3.5mm emerald I’ve had sitting around for ages and never had any particular plan for, and now I’m so glad I kept it for this ring. I was going to polish out all of the tool marks around the stone when I finished, but I ended up liking the pattern they formed so much that I added to it to create a sun/floral pattern. Now I’m sure if I try to do it again, I won’t be able to do it intentionally, but I really like how this one looks! 
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Jul 9, 2023 00:47
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I’ve only been goldsmithing for a little over half a year so I definitely have questions, but I’ll hit you with one to start: how do I set a princess cut without putting too much pressure on the girdle and chipping it? I tried to set a LuAG in a v-prong basket, and because I wasn’t sure how to secure the stone without folding over the prongs, I think I ended up squeezing the stone too tight and chipping one side. I’ve got to imagine there’s a better way, so what is it?
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Sep 5, 2023 03:18
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Soul Dentist posted:I literally never set stones myself, so hopefully somebody else will have a better answer. I do know princess cuts are tough to set without breaking the corners at the girdle in general, and are reserved for more experienced setters where I work. Holy crap, that ball bur trick is amazing. I would’ve never thought of that! Reminds me that I need to get more ball burs, though. That’s the problem with this, and all, crafts: you’ll never stop sinking money into tools.
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Sep 5, 2023 05:17
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Scarodactyl posted:My store is at store.turtleshoard.com (finally starting to migrate off of etsy and it feels good). I’m looking to start an etsy shop soon to dip my toe into selling some of the jewelry I make online. Is etsy still a reasonable choice for people who are just getting started or is it completely unworkable? I don’t know that I have the strength of will to set up a whole website and shopify account from the jump, but if that’s what it takes in 2023, I’d rather find out now than later.
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Sep 7, 2023 02:22
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Now that I’ve got a year or so of practice in silversmithing, I’d like to learn how to do some basic engraving. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to start. Are there non-electric hand-tools I should be using, or should I be using electric stuff from the start? I use a regular plug-in Dremel rotary for my bench work and I’m not sure if that’s good for engraving, or if I need some other specific brand for jewelers. Along the same lines, what’s that little automatic hammer-like hand tool jewelers use to do bezels quickly? I’ve been doing them with little wooden bezel rollers/pushers and a hammer, but I know that has its limits, especially with softer stones. I know there’s an electric tool jewelers use to set bezels with a little automatic hammering motion, but I don’t know what the tool is called or even how to describe it very well. Any idea what this might be?
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Oct 23, 2023 19:18
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Thanks so much for the advice, everybody! Some budget changes mean I don’t get to run out and buy any tools any time soon (thanks, home renovations…) but I’m glad to know what I need when I need it. Having said that, I really wish I’d gotten a whole Foredom rotary flexshaft setup from the beginning, because I’m using a standard Dremel with the Dremel bland flex shaft and it’s becoming clear that none of the cool stuff like setting hammers exists for it. 
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Oct 28, 2023 22:51
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Don’t forget the part where you can drop poo poo and never find it again. That’s an insanely cool part about jewelry making.
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Dec 21, 2023 00:17
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I had an emerald slip into one of the prong openings of an outlet on a power strip. I don’t know what’s crazier: that it managed to fall in there, or that I was desperate enough to check.
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Dec 21, 2023 02:01
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Oh god, it was like one of my last days working at a jewelry store and I walked off with a 2ct princess cut in my purse, and my boss called me looking for it like two hours after I got home. It was cool because we all ran diamonds around like that because we worked in the diamond district, but it was still embarrassing as hell. I shudder to think how poorly that would’ve gone for me if I hadn’t built up enough credibility at the store at that point to buy some latitude. Plus, everyone knew by that point that I hated princess cuts with my whole heart and soul, so the idea that I would’ve stolen one was ridiculous. I would’ve stolen one of the OECs from the safe!
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Dec 22, 2023 01:34
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Soul Dentist posted:Why did you have to set them No I just hated them for their giant tables, fragile girdles, heavy pavilions, busy facet patterns, limited prong options, and dated style. I hate them way more now that I have to set them. effika posted:Thank you for this term; now I know why my mom's vintage diamond looks so much cooler than any other diamond. I've always thought diamonds were boring and it's because they lacked the fun firey rainbows that the Old European Cut ones have! Glad I could help! I love OECs and their elder squared cousin, the Old Mine Cut (OMC). I’m also a fan of the transitional cut, which came after the OEC but before the modern brilliant—hence the name. They’ve got some of the fire of the older style cuts, but they have the precision and brilliance of more modern cuts to back it up. Really, what’s not to love? Nae fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Dec 22, 2023 |
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Dec 22, 2023 05:41
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Warning, making your own jewelry is kind of a pain in the rear end! On that note, I was lucky enough to pick up Scarodactyl’s LuAG Frog Coin from Super Mario RPG a little while ago, and I finally got around to making a pendant for it! The stone is double-sided like a rose cut, so I made the pendant similarly reversible. I don’t know that I’d do a pendant in this style again, since it doesn’t strike me as particularly safe, but I love the look of it and I hope I did the game (and the cutter!) justice. 
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Jan 12, 2024 23:43
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Scarodactyl posted:Woah, I had no idea that was you! That pendant is amazing! I’m glad you think so! It was gonna break my heart if that LuAG went to someone who didn’t spend their Thanksgiving break farming frog coins, so I’m glad I was able to snap it up before someone else did. It’s been so cool to see you and other cutters making video game inspired pieces, since it puts me one step closer to having all of the amazing fantasy jewelry I imagined as a kid. Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Yea I'm not making my own. I am in no way skilled in anything remotely close to it, and honestly there's a better than even chance I'm gonna gently caress something up. I gently caress up stuff all the time, haha, especially LuAG for some reason? I was convinced I’d find a way to somehow shatter this coin since I’ve already blown up one and chipped another, even though I never do that to other stones. It’s not like it’s particularly fragile, either; I’ve just had a run of bad luck. Such is life, I guess…
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Jan 13, 2024 01:02
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Yeah there’s like eight people here and the thing about us is that we all like jewelry, so post jewelry!
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Jan 14, 2024 02:23
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Get in there with a soft-bristle toothbrush and some Dawn and clean that bad boy out to really make it shine.
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Feb 3, 2024 20:32
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I was wondering about the radiation detection in LuAG/GaGG: if you’re wearing jewelry with one of those gems in it, and you walk into an area that’s been contaminated with radiation, will they glow? Or is the kind of radiation that contaminates and kills people not the kind that triggers the glow? What I know about chemistry could fill a thimble, but I do like the idea that I have a magic radiation sniffer in my jewelry box.
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Feb 5, 2024 20:00
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Looking good! A nice cleaning always helps a ring look its best, and any jeweler who takes your ring in will be able to steam clean it or shake the remaining dirt loose with an ultrasonic. They can repolish it, too, but you might have to pay and it’s not always in your best interest. Polishing removes metal, so you want to be careful polishing something that’s already thin. I know because I straight-up polished a hole in the bezel of an 18k gold ring, and I’m still furious about it. On another side of the jewelry world, how was Tucson this year for those that went? I’ve read a little bit about how prices continue to rise, but that’s no shocker considering the state of the global economy. Any interesting sales or news from anyone here?
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Feb 17, 2024 03:22
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Literally the only reason I haven’t given into the temptation to buy that kit and start yet another new hobby is that I have to move into an apartment for the next nine months, so you’d better keep selling these faceting kits until I get my house back! Seriously cool and I hope tons of people have already jumped on it.
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Apr 11, 2024 01:07
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I just saw that the AGTA gem fair is now banning all lab stones being sold at their show. Kind of wild that no one really felt threatened by lab color until lab diamonds came along, but it really does seem like the rising tide is floating all lab boats. Definitely an interesting time for the trade (and a poo poo time to be in natural diamonds, from every panicked insider I’ve spoken to…)
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Apr 27, 2024 02:07
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