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My other partly finished project now all done ( a corundum boulle chunk I did earlier that was just too rough). Tomorrow I can begin with some of the rougher sapphires from Rubyvale/Sapphire. I don't trust my faceting to do the good ones so they are going to be cut elsewhere, I suppose Lamberts...

I started this topaz before taking the faceting machine into Matt Young for a total "FIX". Pat Hogen I know you have seen it. An astounding difference to just about everything I have been doing. No more grating the teeth over why the facet doesn't line up to polish is just great. Matt does such...

Some things will never change. The Earth was flat once, and only a select few understood that it wasn't. Divining rods are no different. I've learned a few things since my trip started and then finished suddenlt thanks to Mrs Badge having a fall. 1. Sceptics will always be sceptics. 2. Sceptics...

Well I tried to put in two pics, try again day 1 for one small piece. I met a local who swears by his aluminium rods and another who ha what looked like fencing wire. Both have small operations in Rubyvale. Both said I had to go deeper. Which I did. My opinion is it would be easier on my back...

I took all of the stones from yesterday to a local and the stars(or what I thought were stars were rubbish, a the rest weren’t worth his time looking at. From the entire dig Iended up with one very small sapphire too small for me to cut. I’ve been told the wash is deeper than I went. Today we...

Well I finally arrived at the Gemfields. Instead of the Willows I ended up in Rubyvale and had a little look around for places to see. We did try a bag of dirt from Armfest and ended up with some very nice sapphires including a few stars, and some zircons. Counting the small ones we managed...

That aussielapidary read was enlightening LONEWOLF. There are many believers who have used the rods with some success, but as I mentioned before not everyone can do it and a real sceptic wouldn't bother with the concentration etc needed to have success, so can never be convinced. I noted the use...

I just watched a couple youtube videos of guys using divining rods, or more to the point one divining rod. One was Tim's Adventures and he uses one underground to show him which direction to dig. He was either pretty sure of himself, or was taking the mickey. But I'm going to test it out in the...

About 15 years back I lived in Nth Qld and asked a local guy to put down a bore. He turned up with divining rods, and I left him to do his thing and returned in about 10 minutes. He had already found water and said there was a run of water running through my yard. I was sceptical but he said...

Thanks for the advice Pat Hogen. I was trying for a smaller table but ran out of stone. I did read quite a bit about cutting topaz and what I read was fairly confusing. The critical angle is 37°? Most designs have pavillion and crown angles more acute ( or is it obtuse? ) than 37°, ie 42° 52°...

Well I think I like topaz for cutting and polishing. So far. My first attempt below on a very thin stone and I was worried I wouldn't have enough stone left for the crown but snuck in. The photography still isn't as good as needed but there aren't too many flaws to find. I think 😄. More time...

Thanks Dughug, I've spent some time looking into faceting topaz and the first thing that came up was to offset as you described. Suggested offsets were anything from 5 to 15 degrees, so I went the average and just finished dopping my first piece at 10 degrees (or as close as I could to 10...

Natural sapphire seems so much easier to cut and polish. Still not easy but I'm getting the hang of things more now. The remarks from both Pat Hagen and Dihusky about less being more when polishing is well and truly accepted now. And keeping everything clean seems to be helping more too. This...

I found the pic and the article from Jeff Graham Pat. He was using the red boulle where I am using the blue rough cut sticks but had the same pitting. This one I did with a similar if not same red material as he used and as you can see I'm a long long way behind. But he makes some comments that...

Thanks for the advice Pat. I'm using 3000 pre polish and then 100k polish atm. Is 100k too much? I do have some 14k I can use instead. And that stone has a pavillion of 42.5 degrees approx. because the SRB design for the 64 index had 42.1 degrees. The protractor on my machine is probably way off...

I purchased some of that blue manufactured Corundum on Ebay and had a crack at cutting it. I only have a dremel to cut to size but it gets the job done eventually. I'll attempt to upload a video of the end result. I still haven't got that brilliant sparkle expected from sapphire on this one and...

Thanks Pat. A long road ahead but one I'm looking forward to. Cheers. Badge.

haha I wish it was inches Mackka. But if it was they'd be pretty big inclusions. :lol: And thanks Jaros I'll take that as a pat on the back. Far from the exacting standards I've seen from others on here. It's been a long hard slog trying to get things working right for me, all the while...

While I'm waiting for Australia Post to deliver what looks like fairly clean stones to cut (sapphires, citrine, rose quartz) I've been practising on a few other sapphires that were with the machine when purchased. They are mostly very small so I cut a couple of faceted cabachons and this one...

I've finally found time to get back to the faceting. A couple of disasters along the way with a couple of garnets so I've come to the conclusion the stones I have purchased are just crap. They crack very easily and the inclusions are never ending. But I did try a little pale green stone (no idea...