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Feb 3, 2024 18:42
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| # ? Jan 14, 2025 16:50 |
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Dang bruh
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Feb 3, 2024 18:45
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Can confirm that is a big diamond
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Feb 3, 2024 18:50
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i like nice words
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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 19:32
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Any of y'all had any experience using Tarn-X to clean diamonds? I was told by an experienced coworker that you can soak a piece for no more than a minute and it'll clear up some cloudiness and carbon from a burnt stone. Any more than a minute it'll eat away at any solder on the piece
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Feb 3, 2024 19:35
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Scarodactyl posted:Oops, I forgot to mention but I am at the Tucson gem show selling our wide range of exotic lab created gems at 22nd street, main tent booth c22. any interesting info or new finds at the land of Tucson?
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Feb 3, 2024 21:15
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I'd love pics of the lab created neat stones you are selling. I'm not in Tucson either.
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Feb 3, 2024 23:17
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Another great year in Tucson, rough was seemingly more scarce but I made sure to pick up some synthetics at the turtle booth!
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Feb 5, 2024 06:39
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Seluin posted:any interesting info or new finds at the land of Tucson? Claes Oldenburger posted:Another great year in Tucson, rough was seemingly more scarce but I made sure to pick up some synthetics at the turtle booth! Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'd love pics of the lab created neat stones you are selling. I'm not in Tucson either.  Our lineup of hyperfluorescent scintillator crystals grown for detecting radiation.  Some of the sample crystals/bits of bobs I use when talking about growth processes and such.  A small section of a sapphire crystal meant to be used on the F 35 that didn't meet spec (the entire ones are more like 200lb).
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Feb 5, 2024 06:56
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Scarodactyl posted:
I'ma need you to learn me some more about these, cause I think I am in love now.
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Feb 5, 2024 12:14
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Scarodactyl posted:
Okay I have to ask... How durable is this stuff generally? I've been asked to make a set of dice out of it at some point.
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Feb 5, 2024 17:52
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shalafi4 posted:Okay I have to ask... How durable is this stuff generally? Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'ma need you to learn me some more about these, cause I think I am in love now.
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Feb 5, 2024 18:02
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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 19:00
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Scarodactyl posted:
I'm a crystal newbie. What is the silver zeppelin-looking one and why does it look so different from the others?
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Feb 5, 2024 19:22
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I brought my Drake posted:I'm a crystal newbie. What is the silver zeppelin-looking one and why does it look so different from the others?  These are grown by melting your desired material in a metal crucible and then dipping a seed crystal onto the surface of the melt. The melt sticks to it and you then slowly lift and twist, pulling the melt out. As the melt cools it crystallizes onto the seed, giving it that weird shape. Nae posted: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. That said there have been plans to potentially flood public spaces with eye- and skin-safe 222nm far UV light (kills bacteria and viruses but can't get in to eukaryote cells), and these crystals might work to detect that.
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Feb 5, 2024 21:18
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Have you ever just slapped one down on a hot piece of uranium glass? I'd imagine it might look kinda neat in the dark. Do you just sell the rough or do you also do the faceting?
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Feb 5, 2024 23:12
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I have not tried, though I've thought about it. I think it would require pitch darkness and a long exposure. We sell rough and cut stones.l and we're working on finished jewelry. I cut some myself but I am very slow and could never keep up with demand so we have most of them cut by others. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Feb 5, 2024 23:34
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What's the price normally on average run for a cut stone? I'm still very much in the planning stage of my budget, but more info is always welcome. It speaks to my inner lex luthor and the need to own a glowing green ring.
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Feb 5, 2024 23:43
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Scarodactyl posted:
Likewise and I’m stoked! I will certainly post pictures when it makes its way through the queue.
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Feb 6, 2024 01:06
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:What's the price normally on average run for a cut stone? I'm still very much in the planning stage of my budget, but more info is always welcome. It speaks to my inner lex luthor and the need to own a glowing green ring.
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Feb 6, 2024 03:45
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That's cool. If I'm thinking correctly I can actually afford something like an 8mm or so stone. Maybe bigger depending on how tacky I feel like being. Like I said I'm still way in the beginning stages of getting the thing worked out but if you have some ring blanks that are ready to go, shoot me some pics and let's make some tacky jewelry happen.
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Feb 6, 2024 03:55
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Does it have the right properties to be faceted in the same shapes that diamond is done in? Bc a band with the gems inset like some women's wedding bands would be absolutely hilarious (and I would wear the hell out of it).
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Feb 6, 2024 07:29
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It can't be cut exactly the same way since it doesn't have quite as high a refractive index as diamond but it can be cut similarly.
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Feb 6, 2024 09:47
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Scarodactyl posted:We typically sell cut stones for 40/ct, it is dense stuff so a 4mm stone is about 0.5ct. I can give a bit of a goon discount though. Any chance of a goon discount on rough sometime ? :P
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Feb 6, 2024 18:02
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shalafi4 posted:Any chance of a goon discount on rough sometime ? :P
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Feb 6, 2024 18:55
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Scarodactyl posted:We typically sell cut stones for 40/ct, it is dense stuff so a 4mm stone is about 0.5ct. I can give a bit of a goon discount though. Is this $40 per carat?
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Feb 7, 2024 00:49
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Scarodactyl posted:Sure, shoot me a pm around the 20th when I'm back and settled in. Will do. Might be a little bit before I can pull the trigger on rough but I'll def PM you.
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Feb 7, 2024 02:03
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Nae posted:Get in there with a soft-bristle toothbrush and some Dawn and clean that bad boy out to really make it shine. Did this last night. I'm hoping they give it a professional level cleaning when I get appraised. 
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Feb 14, 2024 19:29
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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 02:22
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Nae posted: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. There was a remarkable lack of good cutting rough, but other than that it seemed sort of par for the course. Saw some cool jewellery at the shine event and went to a great talk by Nolan Sponsler on fantasy cutting. Prices are all over the place, tourmaline continues to be weirdly expensive, Ethiopian opal came wayyyy down. Montana sapphire continues its march upwards.
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Feb 18, 2024 18:43
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Yeah, as usual prices were up on everything except ethiopian opal. Sellers said it was overproduction. Rough that mcht have been 15-25 dollars a gram was 8 and down this year and way less with a larger parcel. I don't so much with opal anymore but I stoll bought a bunch. Sales were similar to last year for us but the distribution was very different. Not sure what to make of that tbh.
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Feb 18, 2024 19:04
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I have been working on this project for a while and finally got it launched! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHAOkxZidVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUgUSUG-KOQ I'm not a very experienced gem faceter but because I'm on social media a lot of people have asked me how they can get started. The problem was I didn't have a good answer for people with a budget under ~3k. All the old starter machines (Lee, Graves, Sapphire etc) haven't been made for a long time, with only the more expensive brands (Ultra Tec, Facetron, Polymetric, Raytech) surviving. Raytech is probably the closest to an economical option but getting a new setup is still like 2500 dollars minimum and way up from there. If you aim for an overseas machine your options are either somewhat reputable but still fairly expensive (Sterling, various facetron clones, some Vietnamese machines) or very cheap and not actually fully functional (various Lee clones). For a long time the used market filled the gap but it has gotten crazy too--50 year old machines in dodgy condition are still getting high bids and there has been a rash of outright scams. And as a beginner you won't know enough to diagnose problems with a used machine if you get one. So basically you needed one of the following to get started: thousands of dollars, a friend or club with a machine you can learn on or a lot of luck. So I figured the only option was to see if one of the ultra cheap machines could be made fully functional, and fortunately it turns out they can be. Older models have problems that require machining to solve but the newest one sold by Vevor has improved enough that I could design some parts and assemble a kit to make it work. With this kit you can start cutting for under 500 dollars. A couple people have already shown me their first stones cut on the setup which has been really fun.
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Apr 9, 2024 13:52
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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 00:07
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Ditto. I'm trying to dehoard my house and I need some place to be open for me to set that machine down. That'll take time.
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Apr 11, 2024 03:18
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Thanks! The more I use the setup the more I like it--it'a not as good as my Ultra Tec but I just cut (most of) a ruby D20 on mine and it went fairly smoothly (as far as the machine was concerned anyway). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRNxVBLyW3o
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Apr 21, 2024 05:43
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Scarodactyl posted:Thanks! The more I use the setup the more I like it--it'a not as good as my Ultra Tec but I just cut (most of) a ruby D20 on mine and it went fairly smoothly (as far as the machine was concerned anyway). As someone who is a complete idiot at all of this, would you be willing to go into detail about what a higher-end model does better over the budget option? I'm hoping I can afford one of those kits some day soon but I'd be interested to know what using a more expensive model gets you.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:33
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The basic workflow is the same on a higher end mast style faceting machine like an Ultra Tec, but the details are all better. Things are machined true and everything can be trammed properly, the build is heftier so there is little to no flexing and there are other amenities like depth of cut indicators, vernier scales and/or digital angle displays that can give a much more precise readout on what angle you are at and whether you have cut all the facets in a tier to the same depth. You also have a much more precise and repeatable cheater--the one on the Vevor/Cutkit can be used but it was challenging on the big facets of the die, easy to go too far in one direction or other. Plus the motors tend to have more torque which is nice for cutting larger stones and polishing at slower speeds.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:56
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Gotcha, that all makes sense - I had figured that using digital measurements would be a huge improvement for sure, but I wasn't certain how different the mechanical versions would be from high to low end. Thank you very much for the rundown!
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Apr 21, 2024 07:51
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I'm down for more info about the kit and what starter machine to buy.
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Apr 21, 2024 07:59
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| # ? Jan 14, 2025 16:50 |
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'm down for more info about the kit and what starter machine to buy. Starter machines are a bit difficult these days which was the main impetus for the project. It used to be you could get a machine from the 50-70s like an MDR, Graves, Lee, Sapphire etc for peanuts to get started, or a really good machine like an Ultra Tec v2 in need of a little care for a reasonable price and have an excellent setup. Now v2s sell for thousands on eBay, Graveses are getting lots of bids and I even see people asking several hundred for roached Lees. Deals still appear but they are rarer, and recently someone has been operating a fairly organized scam posting fake deals on facebook. Personally I bought uh, four machines before I actually got started, in various states of ill-advisment (though before most of the price inflation fortunately). I got two raytechs (one functional machine total which I still never managed a full stone on probably because of an aligment issue), a Chinese jamb peg setup from a guy who was also trying to make an affordable setup but couldn't get it to work, and an old Polymetric which is really nice aside from a critical issue that lets it freely rotate the entire head for some reason(?). All that and I only properly cut a stone after a friend sold me a known good machine and another held my hand through buying practical laps and cutting a stone. Basically I want people to have an easier way to start than that. Once you know how to cut and have used a basic setup you're in a much better position to evaluate a machine if and when you want to upgrade too.
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Apr 21, 2024 16:32
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