Bow Tie

[unclefunta]

Hi All,

I just received my diamond from diamond.com.
1 CT, Oval, Ideal, D SI1, 1.51 l/w ratio


But it has a very noticeable bow tie.

Should I let this bother me?

I know that Ovals (fancys) are prone to bow ties. But this one seems to stick out more than in the other ovals I have seen.

Is there a way to determine if an Oval will have a noticeable bow tie, by just the specs alone?

 

[coda72]

Hi, fellow oval lover. I hope to get an oval for my next diamond. As far as the bowtie goes, that can be pretty tricky for these stones, as well as marquise and pear shaped diamonds. I don''t think there''s any way to tell by the numbers if the stone will have a prominent bow tie. I think I''ve read that if a stone is cut a bit deeper the bow tie may be less noticeable. But other than that, I don''t think you''ll be able to tell other than by looking at it. I know most of these stones have somewhat of a bowtie, but like you, I would prefer it to be less noticeable. I would send it back if it bothers you.

Also, I bought my diamond from diamond.com, and mine is a beautiful diamond. But I do know that unlike most of the other vendors on here that they don''t see the stone before sending it out to you, and they don''t call stones in to look at them even if you request it. I know when I buy my oval I will probably not be buying from them for this reason. I want the vendor to look at it and tell me how noticeable the bowtie is.

 

[unclefunta]

Thanks for the reply.
After speaking with Diamond.com, they have agreed to work with me to find a new diamond.
And the representative actually said that they will look at the stone and check to see how noticeable the bow tie is on the replacement. So that made me feel a little bit better.
Still, my heart sank when I saw the diamond that has taken so long to pick

 

[coda72]

I''m glad to hear that diamond.com will look at the stone before sending it to you. That will save you time and money on shipping stones back to them. I know you''re discouraged that the first one you picked wasn''t quite what you wanted, but you will find one. It may just take a bit longer than you want. I don''t know if you have a time frame in mind, but many people on here take a couple of months to find the exact diamond they want. Other people find their diamonds right away. Who knows, maybe the very next diamond you get, you will fall in love with it!

 

[FireGoddess]

Glad to hear they''re willing to work with you on this - I have a pear and I have to say, I haven''t found a way to look at numbers and predict whether the bowtie will be very obvious or not. That''s why it''s so important to see fancy shapes and not go on the numbers alone. I have seen a lot of fancy cuts with numbers out of the preferred range that have been just stunning...so unfortunately in these cases you have to let your eyes be the judge! Good luck.

 

[Slykat12]

My fancy, a marquise does not have a big bow tie and it is indeed cut slightly deeper than I would like about 62.7%.

But it did not do well on the bscope as those bowties apparantly return alot of light. I guess you need to think about that as
well.

Ps love the name Unka? from South Park movie I presumme

 

[unclefunta]

is there an uncle funta in the South Park movie? Haven''t seen it so I don''t know.
One of my buddies gave me that name years ago. Not sure where he got it from though. Wish I had a cool story to go with the name.

 

[RockDoc]

The bowtie situation is tricky and takes an expert eye.

If the stone is cut too shallow you don''t see the bowtie, but in place of that the stone will look "flat" relevant to its brilliance.

If the stone is cut too deep then you get a large bowtie, of course depending on how deep it is.

So the middle ground one is the most desireable, where you see it - but it isn''t "obnoxious "looking.

Most of the experts will consider the best to be a slight bowtie to the eye, but remember some of this is good, as the bowtie may represent the contrast in the stone, but can also be obscuration of your head or a camera lens etc.

At the center of the diamond the pavilion facets are the ones that are the deepest, which as they get shallower as you move to each end of the stone, they become more shallow. Too shallow and you get the flat looking appearance from the tips of the stone when observing it inwards.

Tilt is also looked at here.

But it does that the experience of seeing and knowing what is good and what isn''t. This takes looking at a lot of diamonds proportioned extremely well, and going all the way down the ladder to poor ones.

Rockdoc

 

[Slykat12]

Oh really, then I guess I got a shallow flat stone.

Anyway Uncle funta I think refers to a very classless and totally funny

song in the South Park Movie bigger Longer and uncut.
Of course it is not Funta but Fu#$*a.
You will love it!

 

[FireGoddess]

Interesting - I was previously told the opposite - that a shallow stone is more prone to prominent bowties, whereas deeper cut stones can hide them.

 

[cinnabar]

Date: 12/6/2005 2:24:19 AM
Author: FireGoddess
Interesting - I was previously told the opposite - that a shallow stone is more prone to prominent bowties, whereas deeper cut stones can hide them.

I think FireGoddess and I are remembering the same thread. There was a discussion on here in which it was stated that shallow pears have bowties. When I said I had a shallow stone with zero bowtie, one of our experts said that it was because mine was both shallow AND fat; a shallow but long/thin pear is more prone to bowties.

But that''s for pears, so it doesn''t apply as well to ovals: a short fat oval is more of an off-round. Although I love my squat 1:1.37 pear, I''d prefer an oval that was around 1:1.5. That would make a shallow oval stone more likely to have a bowtie, I suspect.

 

[valeria101]

There's allot of discussion about depth and bow-tie, but I suspect that this is mostly because depth can be read on lab reports, and the cut details that do create that bow tie (the size and arrangement of pavilion facets, ultimately) cannot.

I agree with RocDoc, of course... but I suspect his saying 'deep' and 'shallow' are not directly translatable in some rule of thumb about depth (e.g. 65% Deep etc) tempting as that might be. So there are bound to be exceptions - probably more than 'compliant' example to any such rule of thumb.

As far as I can tell, ... just looking after depth (or depth & table for what that matters) is not going to produce a reliable rule to guess what is more likely to have a large bow tie and what not...

My 2C

There was a nice article about bow ties in an older number of GG, but I can't find it for the life of me now.

 

[unclefunta]

So I searched through RockyTalk for "BowTie" and found a lot of information.
Most people seem to think that the bowtie is directly related to the pavillion angles however no guidelines were given as to which angles are better or worse.
I did get the feeling that a slight bowtie is actually a good thing and that an oval without a bowtie is bad because it is leaking too much light.
So now I am worried again because Diamond.com is sending me another oval that they say has no bowtie at all. Hopefully they were exaggerating in hopes to sooth my worries.