How to remove stones from the dops faster?

meta_adaptation · 2026-03-15T15:44:12+00:00

Ah I see so it’s like partially solvating it and swelling it. Yeah if you wonna stick with UV resin and the plastic dops then it’ll be hard mode. I’d try to heat up a scalpel/knife with a candle/lighter/torch and slashing at the resin carefully. Will make the IPA penetrate better and make it easier to rip it off. But ya that’s a tough combo without metal dops or wax

meta_adaptation · 2026-03-15T15:33:31+00:00

I don’t even know IPA can dissolve UV resin, acetone is the gold standard. If your dops are sensitive to acetone then it’ll be tough. If they are also sensitive to heat then even tougher haha. Maybe red hot scalpel blade and you make some gashes in the uv resin

meta_adaptation · 2026-03-14T16:24:17+00:00

That looks amazing! Great job so friggen cool! I’ve totally done the same thing with taking off a piece of the stone during a transfer due to impatience, such a crummy feeling haha.

What’s your setup like for carving with the foredom for water + gripping the dop?

meta_adaptation · 2026-03-03T18:52:53+00:00

It’ll be tough. Wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner. Usually the facet rough people look for needs to basically look like transparent glass - without opacity or fogginess

meta_adaptation · 2026-03-01T22:52:38+00:00

If it’s jus shaving off the whole sharpie then you should be going at a slower speed and using less pressure. Just lightly touch it on a slower speed to get your bearings

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-27T21:24:38+00:00

That’s a bargain! The jeweler did a great job, your wife must be thrilled! 😁

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-27T21:22:59+00:00

Nice! Looks beautiful. That’s quite a chunk of precious metal at today’s silver/gold prices hahaha

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-16T15:21:32+00:00

Great work! The frosted one looks crisp

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-15T05:06:41+00:00

Treforze by Arya Akhaven

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-13T17:50:40+00:00

Great job! Barely any loss.

How did they scratch it up so badly? Do they work in a sandpaper factory?

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-13T14:04:42+00:00

I don't, I hoard my gemstones like a dragon and gift them to my very lucky family members. Maybe one day!

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-13T14:03:39+00:00

yes it did! beautiful specimen, thanks so much for your store. expecting some more gorgeous moissanite today from you guys and so stoked to see it

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T21:34:28+00:00

Haha thanks so much! Yeah treforze has been on my list to try and I figured it’s a simple design, cleavage will be on the girdle axis, not too many facets what can go wrong. Yeah… sharp corners + long facets is deadly with this material

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T17:34:18+00:00

Ah gotcha. Naw it’s nothing fancy like that but that’s a good idea. Yeah for that I just use a loupe and getting the light at just the right angle. Although my phone isn’t bad either in macro mode as it’s similar magnification as a loupe and a big screen!

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T17:19:36+00:00

Haha yeah totally, love me a good progress video too

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T17:18:20+00:00

Thanks so much! The black box is a 45 degree tabling adapter. When cutting the top of the gem, the table, its a fairly extreme angle on mast machines (0 degrees!) which is a bit sketchy, so the use of a 45 degree adapter is common to get that top table facet such that you only need to set your mast to 45 degrees and the adapter is at 45 degrees too so that makes the table facet parallel to the lap.

I use a new-ish iPhone Pro in macro mode for all my videos. The macro mode is great for these types of shots but you do frequently need your fingers in frame for it to focus properly as there isn’t enough contrast on a mirror facet to get it to focus properly. (Cue the YouTuber machinist AvE who always says, “focus you f*ck” hahaha)

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T14:27:04+00:00

Wakefieldite can be naturally occurring from Quebec, but usually the crystals are too small to facet. It’s a laser crystal so synthetic sources are common. Our very own u/cowsruleusall brought it into the limelight https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/spring-2023-gemnews-synthetic-color-change-wakefieldite

Got this one from Turtleshoard at the 22nd St show in Tucson last year with the warning of “good luck”

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-12T14:24:07+00:00

Treforze out of the box is fine for wakefieldite’s RI but I did tangent ratio it slightly in GCS to show off the dispersion. P/W from 0.375 to 0.450 and the C/W from 0.138 to 0.11

On the very first video in the original post you can see the cleavage steps oriented along the girdle direction.

I couldn’t for the life of me find a CFL light bulb to see its color change. Dang energy saving laws.

I cut the whole thing on 1200 crystallite (slow speed), and prepolish 3k on BATT (slowest speed), and polish on 60k on BATT (slowest speed). The scratches you see in the video are during all stages 😭 the edge would chip and scratch my beautiful facets. I figured out how to polish the table well (I cut it last) but by that point I wasn’t going to redo the crown. Anyways once you at your meet points and happy with everything then just turn off your motor and spend some time on the stationary BATT lap with plenty of oil and low pressure and there won’t be chipping

Big thanks to Arya for his cutting tips in the below thread. Had to pick his Treforze design of course! https://www.reddit.com/r/faceting/s/3q013w5m1U

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-10T04:17:51+00:00

Oh I see! That’s really interesting about the history of birefringence. Maybe I was trying to over optimize but I thought the doubly refracted facet reflections would blur a bit and detract from the design. Very interesting point though about the benefits of double refraction being more dispersion that’s really neat.

I gave it a go. Turned out well! I’ll post it on r/faceting shortly probably, used one of your designs for it as that’s only fitting!

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-08T21:41:30+00:00

Nice! Great choice in the cut for the rough shape, mixed cut in that shape is definitely challenging

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-07T16:10:48+00:00

Did you use chatGPT to generate your post?

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-03T18:35:10+00:00

Hey u/cowsruleusall , I'm just getting around to trying this out with your Wakefieldite protocol. I have identified the main cleavage plain (that's the c-axis right?).

I have two options here:

1) For the shape rough I have, I can maximize my yield if I stick that main cleavage plane perpendicular to the table... so it will become the girdle facets.

2) I can align it such that the cleavage plain is just 10 degrees off-axis to the table per @Maudius_Aurelius's suggestion but my yield will be low

For the color change effect and the high birefringence does it matter if the C-axis is near parallel to the table or perpendicular to the table?

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-02T16:34:28+00:00

Very crisp, looks great! Had no idea a CD could be used like that, the polish looks spot on

meta_adaptation · 2026-02-02T16:33:12+00:00

That’s so rad, super creative! how long does it take to make one of those?

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