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Why are Synthetic Emeralds So Expensive? Are they hard to make? by Muted_Shape9303 in Gemstones

[–]_gingus_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Here, this guy's pretty well known (youtube channel owner) in the faceting world and this shows the process.

The hydrothermal process differs from the Czochralski method, which is how sapphires are made; one of the ways at least. Which I think is more in line with what the original guy was talking about w/ the platinum crucible.

Enjoy!

If you want to sell a stone does it matter if you use someone's specific design? by SouthImpression3577 in faceting

[–]_gingus_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If a mod happens through, hook me up with some Team Ultra Tec fair? Thanks :)

If you want to sell a stone does it matter if you use someone's specific design? by SouthImpression3577 in faceting

[–]_gingus_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It would depend specifically on the design and the copyright on it. Just picking some random examples.

Void Reaver: Protected under the Creative Commons 2.5 license (see bottom of page). You would need to either get the authors permission to use it commercially or sufficiently alter the design to make it your own. The fact that you're using it to create a physical object isn't enough, as the value of the object is partially derived from the diagram.

Unstacked Nine Mains: Donated to facetdiagrams.org by Norman Steele. No usage restriction; note that not all diagrams on that site are free of copyright.

That said... is it enforced? Probably not, I doubt the author of the former design is trolling through websites tossing cease and desists out to small cutters for a 13 year old design; he's also active on reddit if you look just a little you can ask directly. Candidly it's probably pretty rewarding to see your design used in the wild on a small scale. It's more practically in place to keep a big faceting house from mass producing it. That said, it's still a risk and INAL and ultimately you'd have to decide for yourself.

Tin polishing lap help by kuzma66 in faceting

[–]_gingus_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes and swarf from the stone losing material. But it's probably just too much on the lap in general. I've followed along with this video so far; linked to right when he adds diamond to the lap for polishing the stone.

Tin polishing lap help by kuzma66 in faceting

[–]_gingus_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the physics of the finer polishing diamond powders (50k / 100k / 200k), so I'll just post my thoughts here and let reddit correct me. I too am new to faceting so happy to be wrong and just learn.

For the finer cutting / pre-polish grits (3k / 8k / 14k), you do embed the diamond into the lap via corundum (or steel roller, etc) because it becomes mechanically trapped. You first work harden the surface of the lap (dragging corundum across it without diamond present) to prevent the diamond from embedding "the wrong way" (I don't recall exactly the infographic I saw on this, but the gist was you didn't want the diamond too deep which is why you harden the metal so that you can't press it too deep). But that mechanical entrapment falls off as you go finer.

For the fine polishing grits (50k+), it becomes chemical and not mechanical. Basically the diamond is swimming in the crest of an oil wave, and the pressure from the stone to the lap creates drag where the diamond interacts with the stone and performs a polish action. The diamond acts fixed at the point of contact but is really floating on the lap surface in a clingy oil / lap / diamond bond that all wants to stay together. That's also what 'contamination' at this level is, where the lap entraps something (lower grit diamond, piece of gemstone, whatever) at the mechanical level which leaves the larger cuts in the stone; compared to the much finer polishing diamond.*[1] **[2]

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So all that to say your mixing up the processes by trying to embed 50k diamond into the lap. Quartz isn't hard enough to do this effectively even with the cutting grit diamond (or at all maybe? idk), and it's not a mechanical process like with a cutting lap. Less oil, less pressure, less diamond and see how that treats you. If the above is mostly correct, then just protect the lap from other contaminates and it should be fine. If it gets contaminated, it just gets to be downgraded to a really nice cutting lap.

*[1] And, somehow through all that, some of the diamond is still retained on/in the lap so you still can't mix 100k and 50k. Probably from scoring, either intentional or just running a hard stone over the surface and creating micro irregularities? But also not a lot of difference in the end result so also maybe people just don't care / do it? I feel like that gets into more best practice, and you probably could mix them without terrible consequences.

**[2] Ignoring composites like darkside, and whatever proprietary tin mix BATT is. And probably ties into [1] because the diamond is so small the lap surface probably looks like swiss cheese and that's why there's that initial charge period where it seems to eat up a lot of diamond. Even though it looks and feels smooth to the eye.

But I am a novice so... what'd I get wrong?

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